- Introduction
- Optimizing Photoshop
- Setting General Preferences
- Setting File Handling Preferences
- Setting Interface Preferences
- Setting Cursors Preferences
- Controlling Transparency & Gamut Preferences
- Working with Units & Rulers
- Working with Guides, Grid & Slices
- Setting Plug-Ins Preferences
- Selecting Scratch Disks
- Allocating Memory & Image Cache
- Setting Type Preferences
- Managing Libraries with the Preset Manager
- Using and Customizing Workspaces
- Building Specialized Workspaces
- Creating a Customized User Interface
- Defining Shortcut Keys
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Allocating Memory & Image Cache
Memory Usage and History & Cache preferences give you control over how much RAM is assigned to Photoshop, and how much memory is allocated to screen redraws (Image Cache). Photoshop, being a high-performance application, requires a fairly large amount of RAM. Photoshop uses many operations that affect RAM: History States, Undo, Clipboard, and Cache. Cache Levels are screen redraws, or how many versions of the current active document Photoshop saves. When you’re working on large documents, more Cache Levels help speed up the redraw function, and make image manipulation proceed faster. However, they are held primarily in RAM, so the more Cache Levels you choose, the less RAM is available for other Photoshop functions. Cache Tiles are the amount of data Photoshop stores or processes at once; use a larger tile size for larger documents to speed up processing. If you’re not sure what to set, use one of the preset buttons. By fine-tuning Photoshop’s engine, you increase its overall speed, and you’ll get more design miles to the gallon.
Allocate Memory & Image Cache Options
Click the Edit (Win) or Photoshop (Mac) menu, point to Preferences, and then click Performance.
Select the History & Cache options you want to use:
- Optimize. Click a button to use a preset cache level.
- Tall and Thin. Use for small documents and many layers (dozens to hundreds).
- Default. Use for general use.
- Big and Flat. Use for large documents (hundreds of megapixels) with few layers.
- History States. Enter the amount of History States steps you want to keep as undos; you can enter up to 1,000. The more History States used, the more RAM is required, which impacts performance.
- Cache Levels. Select a number from 1 to 8. Set to 2 or more for optimum GPU performance.
- Cache Title Size. Specify a size for the amount of data Photoshop stores or processes at once. Use a large amount for large documents to maintain a good processing speed.
- Optimize. Click a button to use a preset cache level.
Enter the percentage of RAM used in the Let Photoshop Use box.
Photoshop needs about 5 times the size of the open document of unused RAM to operate efficiently.
If you have a video card installed, the video card name appears. Select the Use Graphics Processor check box (New!) to use the enhanced speed and smoothness of graphic/3D rendering and navigation. Click Advanced Settings to select additional options:
- Drawing Mode. Select a mode (Basic, Normal, or Advanced) to use different amounts of memory processing (New!).
- Use Graphics Processor Computation Use OpenCL. Select to access available parallel processing power.
- Anti-alias Guides and Paths. Select to enable anti-alias for better display (New!).
Click OK.
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