I'm working with some HUGE images (9000 x 15000 pixels) for some posters. Average Photoshop file size is about half a gig. I'm running Photoshop 7 on Win2000 with a 2 GHz P4 with 785 MB of RAM, and this thing is taking SEVEN MINUTES to save the file. I've tested the 7200 RPM hard drive, and there it is performing perfectly. I've got my scratch disks set up (primary is the E drive, secondary is the C drive). I've got it set to use 75% available memory. I'm getting exhausted waiting for this thing to save. Earlier I didn't save as often as I should have and lost an hour's work. --------------------- What is PS doing when it is "Generating full-resolution Preview"? Is this necessary? Can I shut it off? I have turned off Image Previews in the Preferences. Is there anything I can do to speed things up? Honestly, if I have to spend 7 minutes saving the file, and I need to save three or four times per hour, you can see how this is going to destroy my productivity (if I save every 20 minutes, that means each hour will spend 21 minutes -- or about 34% of my time -- waiting for the damn computer to save the file). This is really driving me crazy, and help will be greatly appreciated.

you can save as tiff. i dont remember but this format dont makes any "Generating full-resolution Preview".without any lzw of course.

I haven't used the TIFF with layers option yet. Won't I lose my layer masks and transparency settings if I go TIFF? Oh, and it should be "Generating Full Resolution COMPOSITE," not PREVIEW. Sorry about that.

any layers and channels not disapears - in photoshop 7 - when you save as tiff.

and your memory setting (75%) increase to 100% - it's save and more effectivity.

If you're saving as psd files, those take time. Though, I work with images of that size and my files are generally between 75 and 100 megs. I'm wondering why your file sizes are so large.

Bonestructure. how many layers are in yours files? how many adjust. layers and chanels, masks, vectors and others. even file with 1000x1000 pix res. may have 500 Mb or more, belive me.
but.... who work like this? I think that better merge if only possible.

Are you saving with "backwards compatibility" on? That expands the file size considerably. Of course if you disable it then you can't open the file in version of PS earlier than 7...

Well, my normal poster sized file generally has at least 10 oe 12 layers. Granted, I don't use masks or adjustment layers much. Might it save some space if, on your last save, you purge clipboard and history?

Attached Link: http://personal.cfw.com/~tkprit/page/leak.html

Do you de-frag your harddrive regularly? when working with files that large, a harddrive can become seriously fragmented very quickly. I routinely defrag my computer once a week minimum (I'm running an AMD 2400+ proc, with the same anount of memory as you and 140GB of disk space on WinXP Home). If your drive is badly fragmented it can take a long time for your system to find enough space to save your files You also might want to try running a dianoatic on your machine (SiSoft Sandra or something like that) to see if you're having a problem with "memory leaks" when you're in Photoshop. Since you are running Win2K the attached article link may be of some use I run some pretty large files myself with multiple layers (sometimes as many as 50-60 layers at 300-400 MB) and have never had PS take longer than a minute or so to save a file unless I was running some sort of memory hog prior to opening PS and hadn't rebooted the machine or my system needed de-fragging.

"You also might want to try running a dianoatic on your machine... " Ummm... make that "You also might want to try running a dianostic on your machine..."

Hate to say it Mr Huston, but 7 minutes is considered fast to me. Mine clock in somewhere near spittin' distance to 30 minutes! which means a lot of coffee is drank between saves. I also work between two stations (for the same pay). Don't set your memory allocation to more than 75% to 80% of your available RAM (to be used by Photoshop). Any more than that and you'll hose the operating system. And if THAT craps, you ain't saving nothin'!

:)
retrocity