system concerns, experienced users, i need help.

JS
Posted By
joe_shawhan
Jun 7, 2004
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126
Replies
7
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Closed
scanning and working with 1200 resolution or higher, system takes 5to10 min. to come on screen from file. also very difficult to work with photo. I am interested in up dating if this is my problem. i have 1.6, pent4, win xp, 40gig hd 83% full, 32mb agp 3d graphics, 512 sd ram. can some one make any recommendations. i just bought scanner, and adobe elements, its all new thanks joe s.
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JH
Jim_Hess
Jun 7, 2004
Looks to me like your hard drive is the problem. I don’t think you have sufficient space for what you’re trying to do. Also, in my opinion, you’re trying to work with too high of a resolution unless you know something about that that I’m not aware of. But a hard drive needs to have at least 10 percent of the space free just to handle the virtual memory. And then you are trying to run Photoshop Elements and it needs additional scratch disk space. I would consider getting a secondary hard drive if you possibly can. As far as the rest of the specs for your computer is concerned, that is what I’m using, and I’m satisfied with its performance.
J
JPWhite
Jun 7, 2004
Huge images require gobs of memory. 512MB isn’t very much anymore these days!!

My recommendation if you’re looking at an upgrade is much more memory and two big hard drives on separate controllers. Use one as the ‘data’ disk and the other as the ‘scratch’ disk. New computers come with CPU’s that are typically 3Ghz or faster. I doubt that CPU speed is your major botttleneck, but every bit helps!!

Jim is right your hard drive is overfull for good performance.

JP
E
E._Gary_Heaton
Jun 7, 2004
Your processer is fine, as is your memory, and video card. You do need an additional hard drive, which you can put in with the one you have now. It is simple to do, and only takes a few minutes.
I would ask you however if you have a USB scanner? And if so, is it USB 2.0? Scanning an image at that size, it would take a LONG LONG time for a 1.0 usb connection to load it to your computer, no matter what size your hard drive is. So unless your using a USB 2.0 scanner, AND you have USB 2.0 ports on your computer, and they are enabled, it will just load as a normal USB 1.0 scan, not 2.0..which is about 400 times FASTER than USB 1.0
If this is the case, and you do have a USB 2.0 scanner, and only 1.0 ports to work with. You can pick up a add on card for your computer for under $40 to give you USB 2.0 speeds. Between that, and a good hard drive, around 80 gigs or so..you should be out of the store for around $100, or even less.
Good luck to you. :}
Gary~*
ML
Mark_Levesque
Jun 7, 2004
These guys are on the money- your problem is not with your CPU, so you don’t need a new computer. There are three issues that jump out at me- 1) your hard drive doesn’t have enough free space, 2) you are scanning at too high a resolution, which leads to 3) you don’t have enough memory for such large images (which is why it is so painful to manipulate the images.)

This is easily remedied!

Buy yourself another hard drive and install it (or have it installed if you aren’t comfortable opening up your case and adding hardware.) It’s not difficult if you can follow directions, but it’s not a job for everyone so if the thought of opening your computer gives you pause just take the whole box to Comp USA (or whatever similar place is convenient) and have them do it. You should be able to get another 80 GB or so for less than $100. This will make life better in and of itself.

The next issue is scanning resolution. More is better, right, so why not scan images at the limit of your scanner’s ability? The reason, as it turns out, is that you don’t actually get any extra information past a certain point, and it makes the files large and unwieldy (as you’ve discovered.)

Here’s what’s going on- when you scan in an image, the data ends up in memory. For every pixel, you will have 3 bytes (or more!) one each for red, green, and blue. So if you have a 4×6 image and you are scanning at 1200 dpi, you have 4800×7200 pixels or > 100M just for the image data. But your memory is used for many more things, like the operating system and any programs you have running, so your computer will try to put some of the information on the disk (this is sometimes called "virtual memory" and sending data from memory to the disk is called "page swapping"), except in your case, the disk doesn’t have a lot of room for the pagefile (temporary disk storage for "virtual memory). So it’s a problem. (Er, I see your eyes are glazing over, so I’ll move on.) 🙂

The bottom line is that you don’t want to scan at any more resolution than the source has. I think most printed stuff is ~300 ppi. If you scan a 300 ppi source at 1200 ppi, you are getting 16 copies of the same data (a bit of an oversimplification, but basically true). That makes the file 16X the size it needs to be, which only strains the rest of the system more.

If your source really does require 1200 dpi resolution, you should probably get more memory when you’re getting that new disk.

Mark
MM
Mac_McDougald
Jun 7, 2004
He never said what SIZE the 1200ppi is of.
If 35mm at actual size, 1200 is quite low.
If 8×10 @ 1200, quite high.

M
NS
Nancy_S
Jun 7, 2004
Joe,

Just to add to the former excellent posts…

If you are scanning a photo and your goal is to print it out at original size, scan at 300ppi. If you are scanning an item you wish to print out twice the size of the original, scan at 600ppi and resize with "Image Resize" in PSE to 300ppi (with ReSample UNchecked). If your scanner will "do" slides, scan at the highest optical resolution of your scanner and resize as above.

I suggest you have a good read at Wayne Fulton’s excellent site

<http://www.scantips.com>
JS
joe_shawhan
Jun 13, 2004
THANKS TO ALL WHO TOOK TIME TO RESPOND. I APPRECIATE POINTING ME IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION. JOE S.

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