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Scratch Disks?


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Scratch disk is a space allocated by Photoshop on the hard drive which it uses as virtual memory when all the RAM allocated to Photoshop is used up. It could be you don't have enough RAM to run Photoshop comfortably and/or it could be that there is not enough space on your hard drive when Photoshop needs to use Scratch disk.

 

 It is best to avoid having to use the scratch disk at all as it really slows things down which is why plenty of RAM is always recommended. What you do depends on how much RAM you have in total, how much RAM is allocated to Photoshop, the size of your hard drive, the number of history states set for Photoshop, the size of the files you are working on and whether they are 16-bit or 8-bit and other things. You can control some of this in your Photoshop preferences but there are so many variables that it is difficult to provide very specific advice.

 

If you check your hardware configuration and post the amount of RAM as well as the total size and remaining space on your hard drive (you can check the hardware by hitting About This Mac in the Apple Menu), as well as checking how much RAM you have allocated to Photoshop in the Prefs-Performance, then it might be possible to suggest ways to improve performance. 

 

The simple interim solution is just to restart Photoshop which will recover the RAM. It should not be necessary to restart the computer. Have only Photoshop running (other apps closed) and work on only one file at a time in 8-bit mode, saving regularly.

 

If this is happening only on your new computer and you have never experienced it on your MacBookPro, then consider switching back to the MacBookPro if you still have it as the MacBook may not have enough RAM and/or drive space.

 

 

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I have two MacBooks, remember -- the MacBook Pro 13" bought in April 2018 and recalled by Apple when I arrived in Seville last November. Because they were going to keep my MacBook for almost two months, I panicked and bought the new MacBook Air 13". Each has only 8 GB of RAM. SSD? Hmmm. 

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3 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

I have two MacBooks, remember -- the MacBook Pro 13" bought in April 2018 and recalled by Apple when I arrived in Seville last November. Because they were going to keep my MacBook for almost two months, I panicked and bought the new MacBook Air 13". Each has only 8 GB of RAM. SSD? Hmmm. 

I did remember of course after the chats we had but wasn’t sure if you had gotten rid of the MacBookPro. I don’t think the MacBookAir is really up to job of serious image processing. Useful for travelling but not a machine for serious imaging use. Stick with the Pro. It is not called that for nothing. 😎

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