Help! My Photoshop Elements is very slow (1 Viewer)

Baron Birder · Jan 3, 2009

Just recently my Photoshop Elements 4 has slowed down dramatically and I don't know why or what I can do to remedy the situation.

I have looked at Task Manager and it does peak at times on the CPU Usage at 100%, not sure what that means.

I have run a full virus scan using Norton Internet Security 2008 and no viruses found.

I am using Photoshop Elements 4 and Windows XP. In addition when saving edited files all I get is a frame with an exclamation mark in it rather than a view of the edited file.

Any help or suggestions most welcome,

Cheers

Claymore · Jan 3, 2009

Could be a RAM fault? how are your other programs running?

mcapper · Jan 3, 2009

Have you loaded any other software recently? Could be a simple matter of needing more RAM or as Claymore says, a RAM fault.

Baron Birder · Jan 3, 2009

mcapper said:
Have you loaded any other software recently? Could be a simple matter of needing more RAM or as Claymore says, a RAM fault.

I haven't loaded any new software recently. How do I tell if I have a RAM fault or insufficient RAM. If the former what do I do about it? If the latter can this be added or will I need new computer?

Thanks
BB

javva · Jan 3, 2009

I hope you don’t mind me adding this post. Anyway……
As Elements I believe is a cut down version of Photoshop it must have similar settings in preferences.
If so, have you looked at the memory and image cache settings?
Maybe they are set too low and you have memory to spare.

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Baron Birder · Jan 3, 2009

javva said:
I hope you don’t mind me adding this post. Anyway……
As Elements I believe is a cut down version of Photoshop it must have similar settings in preferences.
If so, have you looked at the memory and image cache settings?
Maybe they are set too low and you have memory to spare.

.

Javva I am happy to receive any suggestions. Forgive my ignorance but where do I look for this information? I looked in Photoshop Edit Preferences but couldnt seen anything about that.
Cheers
BB

mike from ebbw · Jan 3, 2009

I have the same problem with my Elements 2.I put that down to changing camera (from 350d to 450d) though.The 450d having larger 12mp files than the 350d 8mp.

javva · Jan 3, 2009

Baron Birder said:
Javva I am happy to receive any suggestions. Forgive my ignorance but where do I look for this information? I looked in Photoshop Edit Preferences but couldnt seen anything about that.
Cheers
BB

Thanks Baron'

Well in Photoshop on the menu bar I have ‘file – Edit – Image’……etc.
If Elements is PS light then you should have a similar row of menu buttons. For me, I click on ‘Edit’ and at the bottom of the column that appears is ‘preferences’. I can open this option with Ctrl+K.
Or I can hover over preferences and a list will appear of options (settings).
Here there are the memory and cache settings I can make. Mines set at 75 per cent of my computer’s memory. That’s 681Mb of my miserable 1Gig!
I have two hard drives too. Master and a slave combo, so the slave is my ‘scratch disk’. That’s virtual memory. That’s in preferences too and in my case the D: drive.

.

Baron Birder · Jan 4, 2009

javva said:
Thanks Baron'

Well in Photoshop on the menu bar I have ‘file – Edit – Image’……etc.
If Elements is PS light then you should have a similar row of menu buttons. For me, I click on ‘Edit’ and at the bottom of the column that appears is ‘preferences’. I can open this option with Ctrl+K.
Or I can hover over preferences and a list will appear of options (settings).
Here there are the memory and cache settings I can make. Mines set at 75 per cent of my computer’s memory. That’s 681Mb of my miserable 1Gig!
I have two hard drives too. Master and a slave combo, so the slave is my ‘scratch disk’. That’s virtual memory. That’s in preferences too and in my case the D: drive.

.

Javva
Unfortunately that is just where I looked. No options available for memory or cache settings. I guess that is one things elements is short of.:C

javva · Jan 4, 2009

Baron Birder said:
Javva
Unfortunately that is just where I looked. No options available for memory or cache settings. I guess that is one things elements is short of.:C

Sorry that didn’t help. Oh well!
That said, you must have some control over how the application loads onto your computer stashed away somewhere.
I did read on one of the links below that a particular ‘plug-in’ was slow and how to disable it.
One thing you could try as I assume you’ve got the programme disk is to reinstall it.
Another idea. Do you defragment you hard drive regularly? If you don’t and it’s getting quite full now with stored images and the like, that just might be starting to make an impact on the performance of graphical memory hungry progs. Like PShop and Elements.
These sites might be helpful too.

http://www.adobe.com/support/index.html

http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.3bbc940c/

.

mcapper · Jan 4, 2009

Have a look at how much RAM you have on the computer.

Go to Start, all programs, accessories, system tools, system information.

In there it will tell you what your memory is - the RAM (Total Physical Memory).

It will also give you total virtual memory - that is the max memory that you can upgrade to.

So, for example, if it tells you the total physical memory is 1GB but the total virtual memory is 2GB you could add another 1GB of memory and double the RAM.

In essence, the RAM helps your computer run tasks and processes and helps them to perform quickly. To access RAM memory is very fast. However, if you run out of RAM capacity, the computer accesses the hard drive and uses that instead.

The only problem is that Accessing the hard drive is so much slower than accessing RAM. One comparison I have seen is the equivilant of a 3 1/2 minute task with RAM taking 4 1/2 months if done via the hard drive.

So, upgrading the RAM will provide a big jump in speed.

On a laptop, it is very easy to fit extra RAM. Not so sure on a PC.

A couple of good sites to try are:

http://www.orcalogic.co.uk/asp/
http://www.crucial.com/uk/

Both allow you to enter the details of your machine and then tell you what upgrade you can do and the memory product to match.

I have used Orcalogic twice and been very happy both times.

Hope this helps

Matthew

javva · Jan 4, 2009

Can’t have too much RAM in your computer, no matter what you use it for. If there are spare slots available, then installing the extra sticks of computable memory can’t be bad.
That said. A sudden reduction in speed’s not going to be a memory problem.
No matter how much memory you have the HHD needs to be fit and that means a periodic defrag.
The more you have stored on the hard drive, the more places the drive has to look to find the info it needs.
When you take a look at your memory you could also right click on your c: drive and see how much storage capacity you have left.
If you’ve gone over the half full mark it might be time to get a USB external drive and stick your photos there.

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Baron Birder · Jan 4, 2009

Thanks Matthew and Javva for your help.

Matthew - I had a look. I have physical memory of 1gb and virtual 2gb. Its a desk top not a laptop.
Javva - I have 180gb available on my c drive and 137 is still free. I Do however back up all my photos onto an external hard drive.

I may have found the problem by chance. I had been cropping using custom setting rather than keeping to the photo size restriction. The completed edited file showed in the Editor but when I went to open it in the browser all I got was a square with an exclamation mark.

When I looked at image resizing these files were very large. I resized them and now the show in Browser. My Photoshop has now speeded up to its usual pace! I am hoping thats an end to it.

I will have to keeep an eye out when editing to make sure the file sizes don't get out of hand.

Many thanksB

B

javva · Jan 4, 2009

I’m very pleased you’ve found your problem.
Processer load can be very high when having to ‘crunch’ large picture files.
Your spec. sound a lot like mine. I have 2x160Gb HDD’s and a gig of memory.
Now looking at a major rebuild and a whole new operating system.

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Help! My Photoshop Elements is very slow (1 Viewer)

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Baron Birder

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