teabaglady Posted January 5, 2008 Share Posted January 5, 2008 I bought PSE5 in November and it worked really great at first, but in the last couple of weeks it has been a real slug. Every time I make even the slightest change I get the little pop-up note saying it's transforming the layer, and it often takes several minutes to do that. Because this problem is new, I wondered if there is something i'm doing that's slowing it down. I can be patient, but this is slow to the point of frustrating!!! Is this typical of PSE 5? Could it be the number of LOs I've saved that is growing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ManiakMama Posted January 5, 2008 Share Posted January 5, 2008 Do you notice it happening when you have a lot of files open in your Editor? I notice that mine gets much slower when I have a lot of files open in my photo bin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teabaglady Posted January 5, 2008 Author Share Posted January 5, 2008 I did check to see if it would work faster if the computer had just been turned on, and that didn't seem to make a difference. I didn't think about how many items are open within PSE. I don't think it makes a difference, but I'll check that. I'm working on a LO now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teabaglady Posted January 5, 2008 Author Share Posted January 5, 2008 I forgot to mention that it takes a long time to load a PSD as well. It is "reading photoshop format." I just opened a LO and it took well over 2 minutes. Meanwhile, the computer completely locks up while it's waiting for PSE to finish what it's doing. One thing that I have been doing differently is that I open a new file set at 12x12 inches and 300 dpi and work on that. I used to just open a background paper, rename it, and use that as the background layer. Could that be making this difference? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anna Posted January 5, 2008 Share Posted January 5, 2008 How much RAM does your computer have? PSE is a huge RAM hog. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teabaglady Posted January 5, 2008 Author Share Posted January 5, 2008 Ohmygoodness this is going to drive me crazy!!!! I just added 6 picture corners to my layout, removed the original picture corner png from the photo bin, so all that's there is the layout. (On the layout is 2 background papers and three photos and now the picture corners.) I decided to save the changes and time it. I was saving with the same file name and overwriting the old file. It took 3 minutes and 20 seconds to write the psd format, THEN it went to a new dialogue box to "prepare the file" which then changed to "Writing Photoshop Format" and took an additional 6 minutes for a total save time of 9 minutes!!! Ok, this is the slowest it's been yet. But it has been bad enough that I've been doing one thing and then leaving to get another cup of tea while I wait for PSE to finish it's job! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChristyVW Posted January 5, 2008 Share Posted January 5, 2008 Couple of ideas - one is fonts? have you downloaded lots of fonts to your computer? This can affect PSE performance (as well as other programs). Another setting that can be changed is how many 'undo's' are in the history pallete. In PSE 6.0, this is found in Edit>Preferences>Performance - it is the 'History States'. Mine defaults to 50, try making it 10 or 20. Others have mentioned that using the organizer extensively has caused them to see performance drops. There is another thread somewhere about settings/performance, but I can't seem to find it. If I do, I will post it later! Hope this helps! Christy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teabaglady Posted January 5, 2008 Author Share Posted January 5, 2008 Sadly, I'll have to check with my husband on how much RAM I have. I think I'm ok because the computer is fairly new and it was quite well endowed when I bought it in 2006. Also, since PSE worked fine for the first few weeks, I should be ok with the RAM requirements. But I will ask my husband when he gets home and see if he thinks that could the problem. It seems to be getting worse over time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barb Hughes Posted January 5, 2008 Share Posted January 5, 2008 SOunds like insufficient RAM. I have 1 g of ram and it seem slow to me, but I never get timeouts. When I get the feeling its sluggish, I re-boot and get fresh RAM. Another problem may be the organizer could be slowing it down, if you use both at the same time. That is one reason I switched to PICASA (free organizer download). Works great for me to see the product without having the organizer open. HTH! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teabaglady Posted January 5, 2008 Author Share Posted January 5, 2008 Ok, I just talked to my husband and I have 2 GIG of RAM. He said that shouldn't be a problem. I have not downloaded any fonts to my computer, so that also shouldn't be a problem. (Although I would like to!) I have no idea how many undos I am allowed, so I'll check that out. I hope I don't have to turn that number down because I need them! LOL! The organizer I have never used, but I think we may have found the problem. I opened the organizer to see if my LOs were going there inadvertently, and it won't show me anything. It says, "File Size Too Large." So now my question is: When I save PSD files and jpg's in PSE, do they automatically get put into the organizer? If that's the case, then it is WAY full. Since it won't let me in, how do I empty it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teabaglady Posted January 5, 2008 Author Share Posted January 5, 2008 HA! I finally got into my organizer, and there are, indeed, photos and layouts in there. However, I didn't put them in! So how is that happening? There are not an outrageous number - just 34. Some are saved as sets, though, so there are actually more than that. But I never use this. I have my photos organized in my file manager, and that's what I use to find them. I thought the organizer would be neat once I learned how to do albums in it and such, but if it is going to cause this kind of problem I won't. But I don't know how to get these files out of it, nor how to prevent new ones going in! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeschaff Posted January 5, 2008 Share Posted January 5, 2008 Heather, I'm thinking your memory may be getting too full. Have you been doing a lot of downloading lately? Not sure, but that's a thought. I also like Barb's suggestion of using an external organizer. I just started using my PSE5 organizer last night, so I haven't done any LOs yet with it in operation. I'll try it in a bit and then check back into this thread and let you know my results. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PBarnes Posted January 5, 2008 Share Posted January 5, 2008 PSE 5 does run slowly for me at times but I haven't been able to pinpoint what in particular is going on at the time. I do use the organizer and generally have both it and the editor open at the same time. I have thousands of scrapbooking supplies files and at least several hundred photos in the organizer. It has been locking up on me from time to time but for the most part it works just fine. Your problem does sound like something new is going on but I'm not tech savvy enough to tell you what it is. Sorry. I will be watching this thread to see if there is anything that can help me too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Actnfunny Posted January 5, 2008 Share Posted January 5, 2008 Heather, when you save in PSE 5 there is a little check mark in the save dialog box that defaults to Save in Organizer. You have to uncheck that to make them stop going in there. It just sort of sneaks them in when you aren't looking otherwise. The box is on the left. Another thing that slows PSE down is if you have installed a lot of filters or styles and you have them in the presets. Every time you start PSE with those in there, it has to load all of them. The more filters you have the slower it gets. Those are just a couple of things you can look at and consider. Mine gets slower and slower too as I keep adding presets but its no where near as slow as you are saying yours is. Sometimes also mine just goes off into this thing where it is doing something I can't see and I can hear my hard drive working and working and working and I can't do a thing until its done doing whatever it is doing. I don't know whether its checking for updates or what. Today was one of those days. Good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teabaglady Posted January 5, 2008 Author Share Posted January 5, 2008 Thanks for all your input, ladies. I don't know if I've solved this yet, but I figured out how to take all the files out of the organizer, and how to prevent them from being saved to the organizer in the future. I am working on a layout and it seems to be going a bit faster, although when I saved it, it still took a couple of minutes to save. I'll try working with the organizer empty for awhile and see if I still have the horrendous waits. If I do, then I'm stumped. I've tried re-booting and that doesn't help at all. I do tend to work with several programs open at once (I multi-task LOL) but I have tried using PSE with nothing else open and it is just as slow, so that isn't the problem. If anyone has another suggestion I will keep checking here because, as I said, I don't think this is the whole solution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teabaglady Posted January 5, 2008 Author Share Posted January 5, 2008 Thanks, Joy. I did finally find that little box. It's amazing what you find when you actually look at the options! LOL! I do have a couple of brush sets saved in the presets, but no filters or styles. I'm not actually even sure exactly what those are. I'm pretty new at this, so I don't have much in the way of supplies yet, but I hope to increase that so I need to get this sluggish problem fixed before that! Computers are great, but man, they can be frustrating!! Thanks so much for your help! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChristyVW Posted January 5, 2008 Share Posted January 5, 2008 Have you opened your task manager to see what else is running on your computer? and what the CPU usage is? My virus protection (from my internet provider) is a huge hog! I turn down the settings or sometimes disable it when i am not on-line. You may have some sort of virus as well! I am no expert by any means, but from the way you are describing it sounds like something outside of PSE. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeschaff Posted January 5, 2008 Share Posted January 5, 2008 I just did a quick LO in PSE5 with the organizer open and the speed seems to be the same as usual. Sorry, I was hoping this would be the answer you needed. Maybe someone else can shed some light on this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaryJo Posted January 5, 2008 Share Posted January 5, 2008 I notice my PSE5 is slow if I have alot in my organizer so I keep it to a minimum . Also the photo bin too will slow it down as Amy said. Hope you get it figured out soon. Mine has never been that slow before. Good Luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stamplady13 Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 I have PSE 6 and it is very slow too. It takes forever to open and a long time to save. I haven't timed it though so I don't know if it is as long as teabaglady. Also, if I try to minimize it (multi-tasking dont'cha know!) THAT takes forever. And a while to bring it back up. I use picasa as my organizer but that brings me to another question which may be affecting all of this. Prior to starting with PSE (I am a very very newbie to digi), I always just organized photos in My Pictures. Then someone told me about picasa and I have been using that. But I'm wondering if I have duplicate pictures on my PC? Are they both in picasa AND in My Pictures? Then I open PSE6 and it tries to load all my pictures into it. This happens a lot when I am uploading pics from my camera. I always just loaded them into My Pictures. Now picasa pops up and loads them and then PSE loads them. (This just happens automatically). So does that mean I have photos in 3 different places? I'm concerned that all these files on my computer may be slowing things down. Also...I save all my digi downloads onto a flash drive (2 GB). I know other folks put theirs on external hard drives. I download to my desktop and then copy into the flash, then delete from desktop. That saves memory on my pc. Then when I need to use them, I just open them from the flash drive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sschulte1 Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 I have had a very similar problem to yours when I used PSE 5 and I used Picasa for organizing, not PSE. My biggest problem was hard drive space. I had so many scrapbook files that I only had a few gigs of space left and when I moved them to an EHD I was able to get it moving much faster. I also have trouble when the layout I was working on was a big one, lots of layers and a very large file. i'm sure my files should be smaller, I'm just not that experienced yet! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teabaglady Posted January 7, 2008 Author Share Posted January 7, 2008 In case anyone is following this I thought I'd give an update. With my organizer empty, I am still having save times of up to 7 minutes. My husband spent some time looking at the CPU and other such things, and said the file is really big, but nowhere near where it should be causing that kind of slow-down. There is plenty of memory, plenty of hard drive space, plus this has a dual processor. He checked the fragmentation, and while the check said I don't need to de-frag, we think that might help. The file I'm working on now (which hopefully will make its way to the challenges gallery yet this afternoon) is one of the most fragmented files, and he said that could be causing the slow down. It seems that PSE is using very little RAM and then it will boost it for a bit and the saving will go quicker. So I'm going to de-frag tonight and see if that finally solves the problem of the slug. Really, all I want to do is scrap! LOL! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sschulte1 Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 When you say plenty of memory how much? I had 5 gigs free and I still had problems, cleaning out my HD to 20 gigs of free space helped me. I have a dell dual processor and still had a problem. I also had most of my problems with a file that was almost .5 gig of space, again, I'm sure I should know to make it smaller. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sschulte1 Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 For the question about Picasa and PSE organizer..... You are not duplicating your pictures. I download all of my pics through Picasa to folders I create that are saved in the My Pictures folder under my documents. PSE always popped up and I juste canceled out of it The organizer is basically just referencing the pictures where ever you save them. (there might be some additional resources used for this, but my guess is it's minimal. I have just recently started using PSE organizer and still think I like Picasa better. I like the zoom freature and slide show, but I'm new enought to the PSE organizer that it might have something I like better there! I don't see any reason not to use both for the features that you prefer.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Art-C Posted January 13, 2008 Share Posted January 13, 2008 Several times a week I run Ad Aware. I always have 30 to 80 items (primarily cookies picked up on the internet) that get removed. It's a free software from LavaSoft. I've seen big systems paralyzed because of this internet trash. And I'm pretty careful where I go! This is in addition to running my virus software. Double check and make sure your virus software is up-to-date and run a full scan just to be sure. I have about 90 gigs on my hard drive and I like to keep at least 10 gigs free for working space. One of our team members at work had his hard drive packed so full I couldn't even run a Defrag! You might want to empty your trashcan and clean up your temp files and then run Defrag. This might reorganize things on your hard drive so that it runs more smoothly. Frankly, it doesn't sound like your files on your Organizer (mine has 27280 on it--I love it) should make any difference. I did add a hard drive after I realized how my "collection" of needed goodies was about to overtake my computer's memory. My only suggestion there IF you are considering adding and external hard drive, to do this earlier rather than later. My tech moved my files over and lost my folder organization and thus lost the file tags in Organizer. It took me days to get back up to speed. I'll keep checking back to see how you resolve your issues. Something is amiss! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kara Posted January 13, 2008 Share Posted January 13, 2008 I saw a thread somewhere else about this. I can't seem to find it now, but I remember it had to do with Photoshop temporary files taking up a lot of space and bogging it down. My PSE has been slow, too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nicole_j Posted January 13, 2008 Share Posted January 13, 2008 Heather you should be able to use the pse organizer without the 7 minute save time in pse editor. Something is definitely wrong. Perhaps even try uninstalling the whole program...editor and organizer and then turn computer off then on and reinstall... it may fix itself? fingers crossed. I think there is a place where you can set the memory controls of your computer to allow PSE to use more memory ... I can't remember how you get there... probably in the control panel somewhere. I would think that would help. hope you find your fix soon.... I know how frustrating that can be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teabaglady Posted January 14, 2008 Author Share Posted January 14, 2008 Well, my husband did a few things to my computer, including a virus scan and I forget what all he did. It made some improvement, but only a small improvement. But for some reason a few days after he finished everything he thought he could do, things are moving at a more reasonable speed. I think that I was creating documents of an odd size, but I don't know what I did to make this happen. When I create a new document I start with a 12" x 12" page at 300 dpi. During the time when things were so slow, when I moved a paper onto this background it showed up about half the size of the background. I also found that the stiching brushes from last month's Scrap Simple kit were so small I couldn't use them. I didn't connect these things until the other day when I made a new document and discovered that now the paper slides onto the background and is the same size as the background. Now the stitching brushes are big enough to use them. All my LOs are like this now, and they are all saving much more quickly. I have no idea what I did differently. As far as I know, I am still making the new document the same size and the same dpi. So I am baffled by the whole thing. But my best guess is that I was doing something that made the LOs bigger, and that was causing the slow-down. Thank you to everyone for your help and suggestions. If anyone can figure out what I did to make the LOs such a crazy size for a time, I'd love to solve the mystery! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
debilou Posted January 15, 2008 Share Posted January 15, 2008 I'm not sure that all 3 of these are available in PSE 5, but they are in PSE 6.0. If you go into the PSE editor>Preferences>Performance there are 3 key fields to look at: History States: The number on items on your UNDO Palette - move this number down - It is preset WAY HIGH! Let Photoshop Use Xmb of your available hard drive - Photoshop calculates how much Hard Drive space you have & you can determine how much you will let it use as it's MEMORY WHEN IT"S OPENED - YOU CAN INCREASE THIS IF YOU ARE RUNNING SLOW. But, remember if you start another program, you may not have enough memory to do so. Cache - Lower this number - This relates to how quickly your histograms and redraws work. Also, I have found that keeping a clean hard drive is essential. By that I mean as mentioned above, on about a weekly basis I run Ad-Adware. Virus Scan Clean out the Recycle bin and from system tools the temp folder. And if your system is really slow about once a month I run the disk refragmenter - and this makes a BIG difference. If your files are all over the place, the system has to hunt and peck to find files for you each time you request one. I use Easy Cleaner to clean out the registry also if I start having problems (back up the registry first of course). I've never had a problem with this program. And, as mentioned before the Font issue - They are always in memory, whether you need them or not. So, move non essential fonts to another folder or use a font organizer tool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Art-C Posted January 23, 2008 Share Posted January 23, 2008 DebiLou, Could you recommend a good font organizer? I have been meaning to do this for eons and just have never done it. Bonnie LOVE Texas! It has a special place in my heart!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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