Designstables

Adobe Photoshop is an extended package. The application is not only produced to manipulate photos, it’s also commingly used for webdesign and digital painting. The utilities are so extended that there are many options you’ll rarely need as a painter. Later on we will also discuss how to reduce Photoshop. In Photoshop itself, there are a few things you could do to make it go faster. For instance, you could shrink the amount of calculations while you are working or you could optimalize the Scratchdiscs of Photoshop for a faster use.

In this tutorial you will get the chance to make your Photoshop go really fast, without needing the knowledge of the harder advanced features. In the next two pages you will be guided towards a reliable photoshop and a great workflow to paint the masterpieces of the feature.

Step 1: The Scratch Disk.

If you often deal with large files, it’s better to make a seperate disc for Photoshop (RAID 0 partition is adviced). On this disc, you install Photoshop and save the plug-ins. Try to keep this ‘Photoshop-disc’ as empty as possible. The abillity of the disk is your decision, the rule is: the bigger the drive, the better. (Adobe advices to use at least a 20 Gb disc for optimal speed.) Open Photoshop and go to Edit > Preferences > Plug-Ins & Scratchdiscs. Next to ‘First’ you choose the new Photoshop-disc. With ‘Second’ you choose for another disk which has the most free space. It’ll take his memory of the Photoshop-disc and if necessary, it will switch over to the second disc. If you wish, you can also choose a scratchdisc with ‘Third’ and ‘Fourth’.

Tip: Don’t use partitions on the same drive. It’s impossible to write memory on two seperate partitions, so it will decrease the speed.

Step 2: Memory Preferences.

It’s better to run as less programs as you can while you’re working with Photoshop and larger files. This gives Photoshop the chance to use more memory and thus to work faster. You can tell Photoshop how much (in percent) he can use of the available RAM-memory by filling in this percent in ‘Edit > Preferences > Memory & Cache’. Set this as high as you can, but keep an eye on the other applications you want to run next to Photoshop. So, you’ll need to save some space to use (for example) Winamp and Firefox next to Photoshop. 80% should be good. Photoshop will put this 80% aside when you launch the program. Photoshop will not necessarily use this 80%, it could also be used by other applications, but Photoshop gets the primacy.

Tip: Refrain from going higher then 80%. There are a lot of programs running who all need a bit of the 20% left.

Step 3: Image Cache.

The Image Cache is a set of images of the current document stored in your memory. Photoshop uses those low-resulotion images to build these up as fast as possible when you zoom out. In ‘Edit > Preferences > Memory & Cache’, you can fill in the Cache level. This choice depends on the size of the file and your working technique. A smaller Cache works faster with little images, while a higher level raises the performance of the high-resulotion images. If you work with small images that fit on your screen, you can switch the Cache of by entering 1 in the Cache Levels box. Change the Cache level from 6 to 8 if you work with bigger images where zooming out constantly is needed. The number you type is the amount of cached low resolution images stored in your available memory, in this order: 66.67%, 50%, 33.33%, 25%, 16.67%, 12.5%, 8.33%, and 6.25%.

Step 4: Fonts.

Graphic designers often work with different fonts. You can either chose to work with some great font management tools, or use the Photoshop fontpreviews. But those previews eat a lot of memory because every letter has to be imported while starting Photoshop. You can find the Font Preview Size Preferences in ‘Edit > Preferences > Type’ under ‘Font Preview Size’. The default setting is ‘Medium’, but it’s better to uncheck ‘Font Preview’. Photoshop will go a lot more faster if you do this.

Step 5: Disable default presets.

This step is especially for painters who often use many Layers. In the Layer Palette you’ll find the name of the layers and a preview. The preview needs the most calculation capacity. If you are good at naming Layers, you’ll have no problems with this. People who are used at collecting a bunge of nameless Layers, will have to create a discipline to give Layers a decent name so that they won’t need to depend on the preview anymore. If you look at the Layers Palette, you’ll find a circle with an arrow, in the top right corner. In this list you’ll find the option called ‘Palette Options’. Here you can set the Layer Preview to ‘None’.

Step 6: Layers preview.

This step is especially for painters who often use many Layers. In the Layer Palette you’ll find the name of the layers and a preview. The preview needs the most calculation capacity. If you are good at naming Layers, you’ll have no problems with this. People who are used at collecting a bunge of nameless Layers, will have to create a discipline to give Layers a decent name so that they won’t need to depend on the preview anymore. If you look at the Layers Palette, you’ll find a circle with an arrow, in the top right corner. In this list you’ll find the option called ‘Palette Options’. Here you can set the Layer Preview to ‘None’.

Step 7: History States.

The biggest difference between digital painting and tradtional painting is offcourse the ctrl+Z function. The History State is something you can’t mis anymore if you are used to this feature. The problem that occurs with it, is the memory it demands while working on bigger images. At it’s defaultsettings it allows 20 History States. You need some experience to work out your particular preferences. If you don’t need the History State that often, you might as wel decrease the default number. If you often make more then 20 mistakes in a row, (it happend me before) you need to increase the number. You can change the number in the Preference box (’Edit - Preference - General’ or ‘Ctrl+K’)

Step 8: Clipboard Data.

A small tip if you switch to other editing programs often. You can uncheck the ‘Export Clipboard’ in the General Preferences. This will reduce the switching time if you have kept large data in your clipboard.

Step 9: Disable Plug-Ins.

Plug-Ins aren’t as easy to erase from the memory then the Presets. There are many Plug-Ins we normally never need, but are stored in our precious memory. You can delete the Plug-Ins by going to your Photoshop installfolder on your harddrive. Mostly that would be C:\\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop/Plug-Ins and locate the ones you won’t need. For example: I don’t use the Digimarc Imageprotector, so Digimarc is the first that can be deleted (unless you do use the service).

DesignStable Tips:

Work with the right heights.

If you care about the RAM-capacity, make your sketches at a low resolution (72 dpi) and raise the resolution when you get to fill up more space. If you’re sure about your work, shrink your file by merging as many Layers as possible (CTRL+E) and raise the final resolution to 300 dpi to add the finishing touches. You do this via ‘Image > Image Size’ or simply press Alt+Ctrl+I.

Work with the right mode.

Set your Image Mode to RGB. Even if your final painting will be used in CMYK. It’s better to run the proces in RGB and to switch to CMYK when you’re ready to print. The big difference between 8 and 16b will be explained in a later tutorial.

Often merge layers.

Photoshop has to scan every layer for every pixel to render on every stroke. You can imagen that the power needed for this kind of work is huge. You can make it a lot easier for Photoshop to work with as few layers as possible. When I paint I have mostly 4 layers: the sketch, the base painting, another layer to paint on and when it’s approved it gets merged with the painting layer, and another layer to keep a few idea sketches.

Use Pixel Doubling.

A great feature to use when painting larger works is the use of Pixel Doubling. The Use Pixel Doubling preference option speeds up the preview of a tool or command’s effects by temporarily doubling the size of the pixels (halving the resolution) in the preview. This option has no effect on the pixels in the file; it simply provides faster previews with the tools and commands. You can found the option in ‘Edit - Preferences - Display & cursor’.