# Using 1200dpi in Photoshop, why so slow??



## Zedx (Apr 29, 2006)

:upset: I started using 1200dpi images in photoshop and now everything takes forever to save and edit and convert.

I've got 2GB of ram and a 2.4GHz processor, is this not enough?
Is there something I need to tweak in photoshop to get it to work better with this density?

I'm using Photoshop 7.

Any help would be appreciated!


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## v-six (Sep 12, 2004)

what are the image sizes you're working on?


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## koala (Mar 27, 2005)

2gb RAM should be enough, but your 2.4ghz cpu might be slowing you down, especially if you're applying filters or working with several layers.

1200dpi is used for printing very large images. If you're going to be printing on A4 you could drop to 300dpi without too much difference in quality, or for web images you could even go as low as 96dpi.

A few things to try...
Go to Preferences and change the Cache Levels from the default 4 to 2. This will free up some RAM.

Set the maximum memory used by Photoshop to about 75%. You can experiment with this setting to find the best value for your system, but if you go too high there won't be enough RAM left for Windows or any other running programs.

Reduce the number of layers by either flattening the image or selecting the required layers and merging them. This will reduce the filesize and redraw times.

If you use copy/paste instead of drag/drop, purge the clipboard every now and again to free up some more RAM.

If you have 2 hard drives, use the second one for your scratch disk.

Check the number of History States. These are stored in RAM, so too many could be slowing you down. I have mine set to 20, but you'll need to experiment to find a suitable setting.

There are 3 options for Image Interpolation: Nearest Neighbor, Bilinear, and Bicubic. Again experiment with these settings. Nearest Neighbor is the quickest.

Defrag your hard drives and make sure there's enough free space (at least 15%), and check your swap file settings.

Basically your CPU is the real bottleneck, but these tips should help.


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## Zedx (Apr 29, 2006)

Thanks for all your input.

The image sizes are 8" x 8" so 1200dpi is large I'm guessing.

I will make the adjustments in photoshop and see if I can reduce the image size to something more reasonable it looks like.


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## v-six (Sep 12, 2004)

Zedx said:


> Thanks for all your input.
> 
> The image sizes are 8" x 8" so 1200dpi is large I'm guessing.
> 
> I will make the adjustments in photoshop and see if I can reduce the image size to something more reasonable it looks like.


There's nothing wrong with your computer, that's just a very large image.


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## ebackhus (Apr 21, 2005)

1200dpi is more suited for something around 3'x5'. I've seen 4'x6' prints at 4800dpi which were simply astounding, but are insanely huge documents. Considering the size you're working with you can get away with 600 or 300dpi.


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## v-six (Sep 12, 2004)

ebackhus said:


> Considering the size you're working with you can get away with 600 or 300dpi.


yep, 300 is considered adequate by even some of the more picky people out there.


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## Zedx (Apr 29, 2006)

Thank you for your advice. I guess that it is excessive. I am definately going to reduce the dpi. I appreciate all of your help!


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