BIG PSD and slow Progress Bar!

To open a 200meg PSD file in CS3 takes about 20 secs, I get this progress bar come up saying Reading Photoshop Format... is this normal?
I have a fast P4 processor, 2 gigs of Ram and large separate hardrive I'm using as the scrtch disk. I am curious becuase my friend has a less efficient system running CS3 and he gets no progress bar or delay when opening this same image or any large image for that matter?
Thanks

This progress bar appearance seems to be pretty erratic – I read somewhere that it is supposed to appear after 8 seconds but that isn't always the case.

Your slow opening may be due to another reason however. What is your default printer? Make sure it's not a network printer and preferably make a generic printer driver your default printer. If you don't have one, download it here:

< http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=p drv&platform=win>

All part of the fascinating world of Photoshop CS3.

default printer is a Minolta magicolor 2200 connected via ethernet and the router, you think that has something to do with it, why?

you think that has something to do with it,

Definitely!

why?

Because, in parts, CS3 is badly written.

Can you elaborate before I chuck out my printer?

There's nothing wrong with the printer. Just don't use it as your default. Just load any old printer driver and set it up as a local printer. Make it the default.

When you print, just remember to select the network printer. This is a hit or miss problem and that makes it very difficult to correct. I have a network printer set as my default with no issues at all.

Bob

On Tue, 29 Apr 2008 00:25:36 -0700, wrote:

To open a 200meg PSD file in CS3 takes about 20 secs, I get this progress bar come up saying Reading Photoshop Format... is this normal?
I have a fast P4 processor, 2 gigs of Ram and large separate hardrive I'm using as the scrtch disk. I am curious becuase my friend has a less efficient system running CS3 and he gets no progress bar or delay when opening this same image or any large image for that matter?
Thanks

The times you report show that you may be getting only 10MB / second, which is not fast by today's standards.

The first thing I would check is your disk throughput, using a program such as DiskTT:
http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Benchmarks/Disk-Throughp ut-Tester.shtml

When using DiskTT, I generally save time with a buffer size of 50 megs, and use the write times only when I want to make a quick comparison. The larger default buffer size will give a more accurate reading, particularly for read times.

Test your internal drive, as well as the external one. If your internal drive is faster, you may see better performance if you use it as your scratch drive and save your images on the the external drive.

BTW, I'm not questioning the other person's individual experience, but IMHO it's very unlikely that this has anything to do with your default printer setting.
--
Mike Russell - http://www.curvemeister.com

Mike, there have been at least two dozen slow-downs reported on this forum that were instantly fixed by the default printer kludge.

This includes me, and I can assure you that none of the parameters you mention are bad on this computer.

Just out of interest, if the default printer kludge does fix this CS3-unique fault*, are you saying that it miraculously speeds up the drives?

*in my case it reduced File > Open and File > New from around 30 seconds to two seconds.

On Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:26:19 -0700, John Joslin wrote:

Mike, there have been at least two dozen slow-downs reported on this forum that were instantly fixed by the default printer kludge.

This includes me, and I can assure you that none of the parameters you mention are bad on this computer.

Just out of interest, if the default printer kludge does fix this CS3-unique fault*, are you saying that it miraculously speeds up the drives?

*in my case it reduced File > Open and File > New from around 30 seconds to two seconds.

I've made my suggestions. Let the OP try some of the ideas you and I have suggested, and see what happens.
--
Mike Russell - http://www.curvemeister.com

try setting a local default printer FIRST.