Make Photoshop Faster

Here’s a nifty, simple trick to speed up Photoshop: Go into your preferences and set cache levels to 1 and then set image previews to “Never Save”! Hat tip to Dan Rubin!

makephotoshopfaster.com

(via designworklife)

8 Comments leave a comment below

  1. Awesome tip!

    I think you mean ‘preferences’ instead of ‘freferences’ ?

    :)

  2. Oooops! Thanks so much. Fixed!

  3. Great tip – aside from not being able to see image previews from within the finder, what else does this affect?

  4. In the old days it would have affected layout apps like Quark Express that used the low-res image preview part of the file when you imported it into a layout. It would print with the high-res version, though. Modern layout programs like InDesign don’t need these previews.

  5. That’s very interesting.

    What about the Cache level? What does changing that to 1 effect?

  6. Sorry, I can’t say I am sold on these tips…

    It only sounds like they will speed up the opening and closing of files – not actually working on them. In fact (I haven’t tested this) according to adobe changing the cache as proposed can actually slow you down while working (file size dependent).

    And don’t forget that previews are very helpful when you need to see what files look like without opening them.

    Regarding the cache here’s a quote from Adobe worth knowing:

    “If you use relatively small files—roughly 1 megapixel or 1280 by 1024 pixels—and many (50+) layers, set the cache to 1 or 2 for best performance. Setting Cache Levels to 1 disables image caching; only the current screen image is cached.

    Note: Some features in Photoshop don’t produce the highest-quality result if Cache Levels is 1.

    If you use larger files—say, ten megapixels or larger—set Cache Levels higher than 4. Setting a higher cache level improves performance by speeding redraw times.”

    source: http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/404/kb404439.html#main_History%20&%20Cache%20preferences

  7. Man, it was too easy to be true… It was such a nice tip! I’m pretty sure we should put the blame on the typo fixing…

    “freferences” was ferpectly right (I think everybody got it), kind of frunny, but gut. Besides being way more creative than the boring, uptight dictionnary entry (okay, useful too). You hear “preferences” and what do you see? Something at the bottom of an Edit or Tool menu full of dozens of radio buttons, checkboxes, really tough decisions sometimes.

    But let’s take now “freferences”. Haven’t you just heard the wind dancing through the leaves? Picket Fences — see it? Listen — interferences… Shiatsu anyone? Any sommeliers? Do we still smell like teen spirits?

  8. Tina, I actually put a simple page together a while back that highlights a few settings that you can change to improve overall performance.

    http://aisleone.net/photoshoptimize/