PSP performance

[JuneC]

I am very new and I went through the "intro/make your first page tutorial". Nice by the way...I learned alot. My problem tho is that once I was up to 5 layers and a background I started to really bog down. Each time I wanted to move something it said "alot of memory is required, do you want to continue" and I clicked "yes"

I have a brand new Dell and PSP8 with a huge hard drive but memory? Not sure but it is certainly up to date. In fact, I upgraded my computer so I could persue scrapbooking.

All I could think of to not lose my LO was to save and since I was thinking of printing I changed it to .jpg...my mistake...so I couldn't make the changes I wanted.

So I guess my question is... is it normal for PSP to run slower as you work on a page? And what are the solutions?

Oh, and I wanted to say that I have reading and learning a lot here!

Thanks,
June

[Pam]

It can be normal for PSP to bog down -- but check your preferences (File > Preferences. I have the autosave turned off cuz I don't have a lot of computer memory on my laptop. In General Preferences, I have limited the autosave (but haven't turned it off cuz it's a great feature).

In PSP you can click on "Help," then on "About Paint Shop Pro" and then on "System Info" which will tell you how much memory you have. If I've been doing quite a bit, sometimes I close PSP and open it again. But I do save all of my files as PSP images so I can work with the layers again. I'm working on a laptop with only 256MB memory (313 total memory) - and yet I just opened PSP and it says there is 131 MB memory right now with the Internet browser open plus PSP -- plus what is still in memory from previous projects. Sometimes if you reboot it helps too. Sometimes PSP just closes -- JUST CLOSES -- no warning -- so do save often. It's a wonderful program -- PSP8 did have an update to 8.1 and that may have addressed some of the problems. Maybe the Dell website would have the upgrade.

Corel has recently purchased Jasc (maker of PSP) and the website that was so helpful has changed. Does anyone else have suggestions as to how to get the update for PSP8 (Jasc always carried updates for previous versions) and why June is getting warnings?

[dmp103]

Have you checked to see what size (resolution) your project is? I have PSP9 and 1gig of memory, but always work in 200 resolution. Another thing to make sure is that you are working in pixels per INCH and not centimeters.
HTH, Diane

[ChariTheRed]

I'm a graphic designer and I used to bog down and crash until I upped my RAM. When I ordered my computer, I told the tech what I did for a living and what kind of performance I needed out of my machine. Nothing sucks RAM like working with graphics programs.

How much Random Access Memory do you have?

Think of RAM as the engine that drives your computer and your hard drive as the vehicle. If your "engine" (RAM) is small and your vehicle (hard drive) is huge, it would be like a Volkswagon Beetle engine trying to move a Greyhound Bus up a hill.

Example: I just worked on my sister's HP and her hard drive is the same size as my Gateway (18.6 gig) but she only has 64 MB of RAM whereas I have 640. I can breeze through images of 2400x2400 and 300 dpi with no problem and several layers at that.

I use PSP7 by the way.

I agree with what dmp103 suggested by working with a resolution of 150 to 200 dpi, that might help some.

Also you can free up some memory by not having any unnessesary programs running in the background. For that I would suggest getting in touch with your computer's tech support to guide you through the process of freeing up some memory.

Hope this helps!

[JuneC]

Ok I just checked and I have 504 MB RAM and Hard Drive is 250GB (a monster) so it is obviously in my settings or the size of my LO. And thanks Pam for telling me it is normal. In doing some other things I also have had to save, close the program and come back and it has helped. This is the first time I had that many layers going and I expected that with the new computer I wouldn't have to do that.

I had already seen after reading here to save often, and also saw that printing in .jpg can be better (?) so what can I say...rookie mistake. This was the first time I had used PSP to create an entire page. In the past I have used it for some elements and then moved to another program.

One more question, if I may. How do you create your own background? Either something scanned or a photo?

I WILL get this!