Good morning to everyone! It’s a special day here in the UK! A Royal Wedding day! It’s actually a Bank Holiday but I’m posting anyway because it’s Friday and the rest of the world goes to work! 🙂
It’s time for our last part on Optimizing Performance in Photoshop.
2 days ago we started talking about some best practices for working in Photoshop. We discussed files sizes limitations and Efficiency Indicator as well as Panels Thumbnails previews. Now, let’s add to it a few more items.
Maximize PSD And PSB File Compatibility
The Maximize PSD And PSB File Compatibility (found in the Photoshop Preferences) adds a flattened copy of the image to the file when you save it. This extra piece of information will ensure that PSD and PSB files can be opened in earlier versions of Photoshop, in Lightroom and other applications from other vendors that support PSD files.
Maximizing File Compatibility will increase the file sizes so you may want to disable this feature by going under Edit->Preferences on Windows or Photoshop->Preferences on Mac and navigating to File Handling section of the Preferences and disabling Maximize PSD And PSB File Compatibility (you can set it to: Ask or Never).
Reduce image resolution
The higher the resolution, the more memory and disk space Photoshop will require. Higher image resolution means slower Photoshop performance and slower printing. Speaking of printing, the ideal resolution will depend on the printing device you’re going to use.
If you want to reduce the image resolution, go under Image and choose Image Size. In the Image Size dialog box, lower the resolution and click OK.
Reduce number of Layers
Layers are a very important element of working in Photoshop. However, they increase the file size and the time it takes to redraw the image. You may want to flatten the layers (merge them) after you’re done with the design. Remember that after merging the layers, you won’t be able to access them as they all become one single layer (you can undo but after you close and reopen the document, there is nothing you can do to seperate the merged layer).
I hope you enjoyed it and learnt something new. Have a wonderful weekend and see you on Monday (another Bank holiday here in the UK 🙂 ).
