The best way to increase the performance for large photoshop files?

[aiur4]

Hi I'm a visual artist who manipulates photographs for art.

Well, Im going to graduate soon but I always facing performance issues because of the size of each photoshop files between 5~40gb. Yeah, that's really huge. But it depends on what type of project that Im working on. If I compress tons of images like 50 images on one canvas, it doesn't take too much space from 8~11gb for 13x19 1200ppi canvas size. On the other hand, if I enlarge files, I can put only 10~20 images and take 30~40gb for 13x19 1200ppi canvas. Even the smallest PSB files, it takes a lot of time to save and apply adjustments due to file sizes. BTW I'm using Mac Pro 2010 with dual 3.47ghz CPU. I know that Mac Pro 2010 is old and slow but even Mac Pro 2013 is not that faster than Mac Pro 2010 base on my experiences.

I know that Photoshop relies on CPU speed rather than cores but Im seeing limitation from Mac computers due to slower CPU speed and limited cooling system. iMac Pro is quite tempting but not my option due to the poor cooling system. While I work on just ONE PSB file, CPUs become extremely hot, especially while I'm saving it. I dont have any Window computers and Im already a Mac user but I def need high CPU speed like 4~5ghz. I wonder if Adobe has a plan to support multi-cores as many as possible for huge PSB files.

Any idea about increasing the speed and performance or should I get a new computer?

[Nancy OShea]

Buy the biggest, fastest workstation  you can afford.  All things being equal, you'll get a lot more bang for your buck buying a Windows PC over a Mac.    If you're interested in performance, these guys build custom workstations for Photoshop users.

https://www.pugetsystems.com/

Nancy

[JJMack]

kim7913  wrote

Hi I'm a visual artist who manipulates photographs for art.

I always facing performance issues because of the size of each photoshop files between 5~40gb. Yeah, that's really huge. But it depends on what type of project that Im working on. If I compress tons of images like 50 images on one canvas, it doesn't take too much space from 8~11gb for 13x19 1200ppi canvas size. On the other hand, if I enlarge files, I can put only 10~20 images and take 30~40gb for 13x19 1200ppi canvas.

First of all when you are working in  Photoshop on your images data is not compressed.  How much data an image requires depends on one its canvas size and color depth. So a 16Mp from my Canon 1D Mk IV 4896px by 3264px RGB 16Bit color image would require close to 96MB of Pixel data 50 images would require 4.8GB of data 16bit color  only 2.4GB  8Bit bit color.  On disk the data would ne compressed.  If you are generating 40GB PSB files your work-flow description must be leaving something out.

I just create two 53 Image 16" x 20" Photo Collages 300DPI.  One has small less the 5MP jpeg smart Objects layer the other 53  Raw Smart object layers which ARC would convert to 16Bit RGB Images. However, the Template file has 8Bit color so the image will be converted to 8bit color

These populated Collages saved as Jpeg files 10MB and 16MB files where the Populated Collage PSD file saved as 468MB and 1.8GB that is 1/20 of your 40GB file???

[aiur4]

Hello,

The comparison is quite different here. My main objective is to print as large as possible like 60X44 inch. I use Sony A7rii which has 42mp sensor. If you resize photos to be smaller, yes, it will take less space. However, If you enlarge photos, it will take a lot of space.

[D Fosse]

Let's look at these file sizes again. Taking your original specs of 13 x 19 at 1200 ppi = 60 x 41 at 380 ppi - that weighs in at roughly 22800 x 15600 pixels.

OK, that's a big file, but nothing that should put your system down. I can handle that comfortably on my i7 - 7700K Windows 10 system. In fact I just did with a huge wallpaper image.

Saving this file will take time, but less if you disable compression.

I'm wondering if there are other problems here than CPU speed and bandwidth. Maybe the old culprit buggy video driver?

[aiur4]

Im using Mac Pro 2010. It's 8 years old and Windows is not my option.

[D Fosse]

Still, 3.47 GHz x 2 should be able to handle this.

How are you set for RAM and scratch disk? There's a lot of data to move around here.

The one thing that will take time is saving. Get used to that. But general work and adjustments shouldn't be problematic.

[aiur4]

32gb RAM and 500gb SSD.

Would it be better to get iMac Pro with higher CPU speed?