Viewing at max resolution in photoshop

[cliffp]

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I have been trying out CS5 and am having difficulty viewing images at max quality in quick succession. In Bridge, it is possible to preview images quickly but the quality is sub-optimal. In the main Photoshop program, it is possible to open several images but it is not easy to move from one to another and not very convenient to have to pre-select (ie open them) a load of photos to view in high quality. In programs such as Aperture, it seems much easier to casually look at images at will and achieve the best viewing quality.

 

Am I missing something or is PS not intended for this kind of usage?

[delander †]

I could be barking up the wrong tree but I think PS shows the full image not a preview. How much memory does your machine have?

 

Jeff

[cliffp]

PS seems to show full res but not in Bridge. I only find it convenient to look at lots of photos in Bridge.

 

My machine is an iMac with i7 CPU and 8GB of ram (2TB HD)

[adan]

There are some display preferences in CS4 - which I assume still apply in CS5 - that can help system performance. Turning off "OpenGL drawing" is the big one (unless you are absolutely devoted to iPad-like "flick scrolling" and drop shadows around your pictures and a grid separating the pixels at greater-then-100% views). In fact, if OpenGL is on, you'll get a warning if you try to open more than 4 pictures anyway, saying it can only be applied to a max. of 4 open images.

 

Otherwise, the old standbys of boosting the amount of RAM Photoshop is allowed to use and changing the number of history states and cache size (again in the PS preferences) will boost performance. If you are just scanning pix, you probably don't need 20 history states enabled - reduce that to 5 or so - or as low as you want. The preferences dialogue has hint notes to guide you in what adjustments will improve performance.

 

As will turning off other operations and programs (I notice PSCS4 display and redraws slow down a lot if my computer is also maintaining a wireless Airport link - so I shut that down when Photoshopping).

 

If Bridge is doing a lot of thumbnail-generating and applying of ACR defaults in the background (a newly opened set of pix), that can also slow down PS. But that goes away once Bridge is done (depends on the number of pix in your open folder - maybe a minute or two for 100 images?)

[cliffp]

Andy

 

Thanks a lot for such a detailed and helpful reply!