U of S | Mailing List Archive | alt-photo-process-l | Re: OT: disk error

Re: OT: disk error



Bob wrote:
Dear Rajul,
Do you know about "scratch space"? When you are working in Photoshop, a 47 mb file is actually using more than twice it's file size. Maybe more than 100 mb of available memory. If you "save" during work on the file, it is worse as far as using "available memory".

So, "available memory" is the combination of RAM that your system is using and "virtual memory' which is your system co-opting disk space as available memory. OK, let's go to "scratch space". In your Photoshop preferences, Scatch Disk is defineable. Let's say, your boot drive is 20 gb, but is 60% full. That means you will have less than 9 gb of disk space available for both Photoshop and your operating system. Trouble. You don't have space to save your "scratch" (working data) while the file is still open. Oops!

OK, let's imagine you have a 200 gb external drive on your local net. Wow!!!! Save your file to the external!
or, better yet, go back to your Photoshop preferences and formally designate your "Scratch" disks. It will allow you to designate your boot disk as Scatch number 1 and your 200 gb external as Scatch number 2. that means when you are working in Photoshop, you will automatically have more than 220 gb of "Scratch" space available..... Yahoo!

One more tip... if you "save" your file, it sustains the 100 mb of open scratch it is using. But if you, "Save as", you drop your scratch file so you're back to using half the scratch space again. Good to know if you still have limited disk space.

Hope this helps!
Bob


Ooops, I forgot the scratch files. Not being a Photoshop user I've not run into this very often. Making sure that you max out the available ram on your system would probably be a good idea if the machine isn't stuffed to the gills already. Spooling to a hard drive can be slow, especially if you are running in usb vs. Firewire-or so the tech geeks have told me.
Gordon