effects menu and memory/crashes

[Papa Fisheye]

Hello,

I've had various versions of Paint Shop Pro since 2001. My old computer had 1GB of RAM, so the occasional crash was not unheard of (PSP8 thru PSP10). This was especially true with effects such as EFFECTS/ART MEDIA EFFECTS/BRUSH STROKES. A preview in the preview pane, much less on the actual image, would take forever and it would either stop responding or I'd run out of patience (usually after 20 seconds or so) and end the program.

Now, I have 12GB or RAM, and guess what? No difference!

I caught this line in another thread, which may explain it:

Re: Memory with PSPX3
Postby Tim Morrison on Sat May 07, 2011 3:04 pm
PSP X3 is a 32 bit application, so it can only use 2 GB of memory, no matter how much you have installed.

So, my question is, how did Jasc and now Corel expect anybody to be able to use this command? Other similar commands are just as bad.

Thanks,

PF

[df]

I just tried the Brush Strokes effect on an image from my 10mp camera. It does indeed take FOR EVER, but I had Task Manager open and it wasn't actually memory intensive. It is rather CPU intensive though. The computer I tried it on was an older, slower, single core Vista computer with only 2gb of RAM and it never went over 40% memory usage. But the CPU usage was over 80% and it would have likely used more CPU had it had it.

When I reduced the size of the image by 50% the preview and actual use of the filter's speed was improved. If you know the size that the file will be printed to or viewed at you may resize to that size first. The brush strokes will look more natural as well.

[LeviFiction]

Yeah, this effect is pretty fast on smaller images (1200x1800 pixel image or 4x6 at 300dpi only took five seconds) but the larger they are the more information it has to take into account. So that's the most likely cause of what you're seeing here. Of course I was also processing 7 hours worth of audio at the same time so that may have negatively effected my processing time.

[Papa Fisheye]

Yes, I agree. I think what I wasn't taking into account was the fact that original size images (and with a 17mp camera, we're talking large even for jpgs) aren't needed to achieve the results "effects" provide. If you take a photograph and resize it to 30% plus or minus and run an "effects" command, the end result is so vastly different (in most cases) from the original, it wouldn't make any difference if a full size image or a resized imaged had been used.

thanks,

pf

[Tim Morrison]

Yes, I agree. I think what I wasn't taking into account was the fact that original size images (and with a 17mp camera, we're talking large even for jpgs) aren't needed to achieve the results "effects" provide.

PSP works on an uncompressed version of the image that is completely independent of the file type.
As an example lets assume you have 12 megapixel camera that produces images that are 4000 x 3000 pixels. The JPGs will vary in size, but let's assume we have one that has a file size of 6MB.
When PSP opens the image it uncompresses the image so that it has all 12 million pixels in memory. Each pixel needs three bytes of memory... one each for red, green and blue values. This means your image uses 36 million bytes of memory... six times the size of the JPG file. In fact PSP uses more memory for JPGs than any other file type, because of the memory used during the initial uncompressing and the recompressing during the save. Part of this process appears to involve PSP keeping a second copy of the pixels in memory, so the the 6MB JPG will use over 80MB at times.
If you add a layer it will need 48 million bytes because layers other than the background layer need a fourth byte to hold the pixel's transparency. Add a third layer and another 48 million bytes of memory are used.

[Papa Fisheye]

It doesn't take long for the memory usage to add up, does it.

I wish the program had more access to the abundance of RAM installed. With just a single image open, I've had numerous crashes during many different stages of editing. I can be doing something simple, like dragging a window across the screen, and those telltale ghost windows will be left behind, which usually indicate RAM and paging files are nearly full. I'll do a task manager investigation within the next few sessions to see if I can see any patterns. It also crashes often while using the browser - to the extent I've abandoned it for Windows Explorer. To be honest, I've had the program since January, which shipped with the current Dell I'm using, and am sorry to say 1 out of every 2 sessions is prematurely terminated by a program crash. I can't say for certain if it's the PSPX3 software itself, a compatibility issue, or what, but hopefully things will sort their selves out over time.

pf

[df]

It doesn't take long for the memory usage to add up, does it.

I wish the program had more access to the abundance of RAM installed. With just a single image open, I've had numerous crashes during many different stages of editing. I can be doing something simple, like dragging a window across the screen, and those telltale ghost windows will be left behind, which usually indicate RAM and paging files are nearly full. I'll do a task manager investigation within the next few sessions to see if I can see any patterns. It also crashes often while using the browser - to the extent I've abandoned it for Windows Explorer. To be honest, I've had the program since January, which shipped with the current Dell I'm using, and am sorry to say 1 out of every 2 sessions is prematurely terminated by a program crash. I can't say for certain if it's the PSPX3 software itself, a compatibility issue, or what, but hopefully things will sort their selves out over time.

pf

Try CleanMem, it doesn't have a slick interface, but if you can figure out how to set it to clean the memory every 5 minutes you may see an improvement.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/CleanMem_d5993.html

Also, if you don't use the Organizer within PSP you may just turn that off so it's not using up processor space or ram.
File > Preferences > General Program Preferences > Organizer tab; File Format Exclusions, select all; Uncataloged Folders, C drive (or any other drive or folders).