freeing up scratch RAM

BH
Posted By
Bill Hilton
Nov 1, 2005
Views
483
Replies
3
Status
Closed
Is there a better way to free up scratch disk space than what I’m doing? I have 1.15 GB of scratch on one system and when working on a large file for print sometimes end up allocating 3-4 GB (watching the ‘scratch size’ number in the bottom-left window), meaning I’m working off the scratch disk a lot. Once the edits are done on a file I typically make a copy, convert to 8 bits, flatten and save as a tiff for printing.

Then when I do Edit > Purge > All the scratch size still stays high even though the file size doesn’t warrant it. For example on a file I just worked on the scratch amount is 2.05 GB with one flat tiff file open after doing the steps described above, while if I close Photoshop and re-open this same tiff file I need less than 1 GB of scratch space.

I guess the question boils down to ‘why doesn’t Photoshop free up the RAM when I purge?’ and ‘is there a way to clear the RAM space without closing and re-opening Photoshop?’ This is with CS and XP.

Bill

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J
Jim
Nov 1, 2005
"Bill Hilton" wrote in message
Is there a better way to free up scratch disk space than what I’m doing? I have 1.15 GB of scratch on one system and when working on a large file for print sometimes end up allocating 3-4 GB (watching the ‘scratch size’ number in the bottom-left window), meaning I’m working off the scratch disk a lot. Once the edits are done on a file I typically make a copy, convert to 8 bits, flatten and save as a tiff for printing.

Then when I do Edit > Purge > All the scratch size still stays high even though the file size doesn’t warrant it. For example on a file I just worked on the scratch amount is 2.05 GB with one flat tiff file open after doing the steps described above, while if I close Photoshop and re-open this same tiff file I need less than 1 GB of scratch space.
I guess the question boils down to ‘why doesn’t Photoshop free up the RAM when I purge?’ and ‘is there a way to clear the RAM space without closing and re-opening Photoshop?’ This is with CS and XP.
Bill
Perhaps because Edit>Purge clears the PS scratch space on the scratch disk (i.e. delete a scratch file) but does not return the allocated space to Windows (that return space that might be needed later).
In any case, purging the scratch area has no effect on RAM (which means Random Access Memory) which is not a reserved area on a hard drive. Jim
LI
Lorem Ipsum
Nov 1, 2005
"Bill Hilton" wrote in message

Then when I do Edit > Purge > All the scratch size still stays high even though the file size doesn’t warrant it.

There is considerable overhead in allocating scratch space. It faster to grab it all at once, when possible, rather than to iteratively add it only as needed. If you were actually able to shrink it, you would have a bear the slow performance as it extends again when you return to work.

I guess the question boils down to ‘why doesn’t Photoshop free up the RAM when I purge?’ and ‘is there a way to clear the RAM space without closing and re-opening Photoshop?’ This is with CS and XP.

See above.
D
DD
Nov 1, 2005
On Tue, 1 Nov 2005 10:13:56 -0600, "Lorem Ipsum" wrote:

I guess the question boils down to ‘why doesn’t Photoshop free up the RAM when I purge?’ and ‘is there a way to clear the RAM space without closing and re-opening Photoshop?’ This is with CS and XP.

See above.

I’m running a program by the name of Windows Expert (quite a few years now). Windows Expert has got a System Manager/ Memory Turbo/Free Memory facility. There is many more ‘Ram Releasers’ on the market.

I’ve got a little bit more than one gig ram on my PC and never had a memory problem; partly due to Windows Expert, which contain many more facilities, but I use it mainly to free Ram.

Dave

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