Adobe Photoshop Advanced (2023): Preferences and Workflow

Name: Adobe Photoshop Advanced (2023): Preferences and Workflow
Author: Jeff Drylewicz

Learn how to optimize Photoshop for both performance and personal taste

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Course: On-Demand

Hello, I'll be going over the various ways to enhance Photoshop's performance. So Adobe Photoshop is a powerhouse of a program. That being said, it could be quite a strain in your computer, especially when working with very large files. This can cause the lag and get the dreaded spinning wheel, or even crash sometimes. Besides having a computer with a powerful processing speed, there are adjustments within Photoshop that can be made to aid in its performance, so let's take a look at some of them. So to start off with, I've got two options. I can go up to Photoshop and go to my Preferences and choose General. Or as you see right here, Command K. I'm going to hit the Command K option. That's the keyboard shortcut to open up our Preferences. So now that we're in our Preferences, what we're going to start with and pretty on the nose here is performance. So within our performance, what we can look at here to start off with is our memory usage, because the amount of memory you're using for this program to run is going to affect its performance. So now we can up this number and the higher that number goes up, the better it is utilizing the memory of your computer and the hard drive that it's working from. Okay, so we can put that number up to start off with. Next, we can look over here at Graphics Processor, use Graphics Processor, right? So I've got that checked off. So what this does when it's highlighted, it'll tell you down below what tools or commands will be used to more effectively when using the Graphics Processor on the computer. Keep in mind, the Graphics Processor normally pertains to newer computers. But as you can see down here under where it says description, I've got to keep that highlighted because I take it off that goes away. What this is affecting is the Rotate the View Tool, the Birds Eye Zooming, Pixel Grid, Flick Panning, Scrubby Zoom when you're working on animation, your HUD Color Picker. All of these things, let's see what else it's got, enhancements, so your Blur Gallery, your Smart Sharpen, your Selecting a Focus Area, Image Size, and Preserving the Details, Liquify Puppet Warp. A lot of tools that really can slow down Photoshop when you use them. So having them being optimized through a newer computer with the Graphics Processor being utilized here, that is your best case scenario just for increasing the speed of your computer and the processing power of Photoshop. Another thing we can look at here is the History State. So the History State, that here, that refers to how far you can go back if you need to undo when you're hitting Ctrl Z, you're going up to Edit, Undo, or even looking at the History Panel, right, History Panel, how many steps back you can go. So this is great if you're working on something that will require a significant amount of edits. But that is going to slow the program down. So what I'm doing when I lower this number is I'm telling Photoshop that I don't need 50, I can drop it down to say 20, all right, and if I'm doing only 20 states, that's something Photoshop that I only want to go up to 20 steps to undo or in my History State if I need to revert. But again, if you're working on a very large document or something that's going to require a lot of edits, you may need to keep going back and reverting back to different History States, that number may need to be higher. So within the Preferences, these are some of the great ways to increase the performance and the speed of Photoshop, but let's look at some other methods we've got here as well. So I'm going to hit OK to that. So now this file that I'm working with, OK, File Size. We talked about that a little bit, you know, just a moment ago, that also determines how well Photoshop is running. So the higher the file size, the harder or slower it is for Photoshop to run and display effects like thumbnails, you know, the higher the size of your file, the harder or slower it is for Photoshop to run and display different effects, thumbnails and other edits. So what I can do is I'm going to go up to Image, go to my Image Size and take a look at it. So right now my document here, my image is 91 meg, so that's very big. The resolution is 300 and the pixels are 7,000. That's a very large document. Let's see what that is in inches, see a 23 by 15, so that's a significant amount or significant size document here. So now it being 300 resolution, so say I was printing this on a poster, that's a great size for it. The resolution is what really matters in this case because we're not really going to lose any of our image quality if we drop those pixels down a bit. So I'm going to drop this down to 5,000 and you can see that already dropped it was 91 Megs, now it is 46.4 megabytes, right? So that gave a significant drop in image size, which again will also increase the speed of your computer. I mean, the speed of Photoshop, resolution is another one here because 300 is basically the industry standard. If you were printing something very big, a banner of some sort, something that's going to be large format printing, you may need to increase that resolution, but again, the higher that number goes, the more it's going to slow down the program. So anything that's going to be web based, you can drop that resolution lower. For print, you do want to be at 300. So I'm just going to hit OK on this one here. And that wraps up how we go over increasing the performance speed of Photoshop. So I hope these methods for increasing the speed and optimization of Photoshop will help you if you run into performance problems when working on your projects. Come back for our next lesson. We'll be learning how to add a watermark to a document. Thanks for watching.

Advanced Provider : Jeff Drylewicz 6 Lessons · 34m in English

Course Description

In this course on Adobe Photoshop 2023, you will learn how to access the Preferences via dropdown menu and keyboard shortcut. We’ll discuss how utilizing this option can help increase the speed at which Photoshop functions, as well as allow you to customize your workspace. By the end of this course, you will be able to ensure that Photoshop is giving you its maximum output without lag and crashes. We’ll cover how to record, save, and continuously use actions that can be repeated on multiple files. We’ll also cover how to edit keyboard shortcuts to personalize them to your working style. Finally, you’ll learn how to organize and work with only relevant panels, which can be saved as a workspace to greatly improve your design process, optimize your workflow, and keep your projects running smoothly.

What You'll Learn

Adjust Photoshop preferences to improve program efficiency and performance speed
Create, record, and save actions that can be repeated on multiple files
Edit and personalize keyboard shortcuts to match your working style
Batch process images and work with the Automate command
Organize relevant panels and save them as a customized workspace
Add watermarks as text and logo, and save multi-page PDFs

Key Takeaways

Accessing Preferences via dropdown menu or keyboard shortcut lets you customize your workspace and increase the speed at which Photoshop functions.
Adjusting preferences helps ensure Photoshop gives maximum output without lag and crashes.
Recording and saving actions allows the same steps to be repeated continuously across multiple files.
Editing keyboard shortcuts lets you personalize Photoshop to your own working style.
Organizing relevant panels into a saved workspace improves the design process and optimizes workflow.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does this Adobe Photoshop course cover?

It covers accessing and adjusting Preferences to improve performance speed, recording and saving actions for reuse across files, editing keyboard shortcuts, using the Automate command, batch processing images, and organizing panels into a saved workspace.

What skills will I gain from this course?

You will gain skills in batch processing and working with keyboard shortcuts in Adobe Photoshop 2023.

What will I be able to do by the end of the course?

By the end you will be able to ensure Photoshop is giving its maximum output without lag and crashes, create and reuse actions, personalize keyboard shortcuts, and save customized workspaces to optimize your workflow.

What topics do the lessons include?

Lessons include adjusting preferences for performance speed, adding watermarks as text and logo, batch processing images, interface tips, saving multi-page PDFs, and using actions.