I just upgraded from a 3 yr old Mac G5 w/ dual 2.5 and pretty fast machine to a new MacPro w/ dual 2.8 and 4gb ram and it is really slow! I brought it back to Apple and they did an archive re install or something like that but it is still really slow in Photoshop CS3 and especialy Bridge. Are there settings I need to change? Whats happening, I am getting major pinwheels.

If I were you I'd buy a lot more RAM.

Just my 2 ¢.

So long for now, TOM

You have to say about how you have things set up. How much memory do you have? Where are your images located? On the machine? On an external drive?

How do you have all the PS3 performance parameters set?

How big are your files? What are you trying to do to them?

(I agree with Tom that lack of memory could be a major factor.)

ed in Baltimore

Photoshop is fast enough on my 3 year old non dual core PC laptop with only 2G of RAM, as it is on my equally ancient PC again with 2G of RAM. Today on my new 8Core Mac again with 2G of RAM, the wheel of doom spun, a lot. But that might be something to do with 1.5G files!! Damn H3D files!
Bridge however is fantastically quick in comparison. Usuable in fact unlike on my PC desktop! Possibly as I have an nVidia graphics card on PC box.

Some things you should consider:

1. The memory setting of PS should not be set higher than 2.5 GB even if you have more RAM,
2. You should get a second HD (Raptor class is best) and set that up as scratch disk for PS
3. There is a patch somewhere on the Adobe site that enables PS CS3 to automatically use RAM in exces of 3GB as virtual memory on OSX
4. [perhaps] Tiger might be faster than Leopard, that is what I see on my non production iMac, but I don't use CS3 a lot on it.

Cheers,
Bernard

My Mac is also having terrible redraw issues. The same enormous image plays very nicely on my 3 yr old [PC] laptop.
In fact this stupid Mac has been the most unreliable and faffy computer I've ever owned.

a couple things to check:

1. the small info box in the lower left is usually set to image percent you can change that to show system usage if it is at 100% everything is fine lower means slower.

2. open up activity monitor and see who the memory is being used.

3. review your profile settings memory scratch disk and so on.

fwi 4 gigs of memory should be fine for basic processing on a single image

good luck

Here is the official Adobe Tech Note on memory optimization for Photoshop CS3 and OSX:

http://www.adobe.com/go/kb401089

I assume that you should have at least 8 gig of RAM and devote it to PS. It is based on the official Adobe Photoshop recommendations:

When you run Photoshop CS3 on a 64-bit operating system, such as Mac OS X v10.4 and later, Photoshop can access up to 8 GB of RAM. You can see the actual amount of RAM Photoshop can use in the Let Photoshop Use number when you set the Let Photoshop Use slider in the Performance preference to 100%. The RAM above the 100% used by Photoshop, which is from approximately 3 GB to 3.7 GB, can be used directly by Photoshop plug-ins (some plug-ins need large chunks of contiguous RAM), filters, and actions. If you have more than 4 GB (to 8 GB), the RAM above 4 GB is used by the operating system as a cache for the Photoshop scratch disk data. Data that previously was written directly to the hard disk by Photoshop is now cached in this high RAM before being written to the hard disk by the operating system. If you are working with files large enough to take advantage of these extra 2 GB of RAM, the RAM cache can increase performance of Photoshop.

I have not gotten my MacPro yet but I intend to get one with 8 gig of RAM--at least. I will get 2 gig with the machine and then the rest from OWC or some place like that at a much lower price.

You cant beat RAM for scratch disk space--as far as speed is concerned.

My 1 cents...

Ed Hopkins
baltimore

Actually it was because I forgot to tick the HQ preview check box in preferences when I reinstalled it a couple of days ago. So it's no quicker really.

My aging PC laptop has a max of 2G of RAM and is pretty good with PS.

Well....how big are your files? My old Mac G4--dual processor, 1.25 gigaherz processor 2 G RAM was blazingly fast with the 6 MB files from an old Canon Rebel. My wife is getting ready to move up to a 21 mb camera (the new Canon.) The G4 won't cut it--especially when doing cpu intensive operations like applying blends and the like to a whole image.

I would really be impressed if you were processing 21 MB files on your old PC with 2 G of RAM.

And the snappier your machine is, the more things you can try in PS. Slow means you don't experiment.

Anyone out there using the 8 GB RAM that Adobe recommends who can report on what actually happens? I only know what I read and am always a bit skeptical.

Ed in Baltimore