|
When you're working with digital images, your computer should have, as a bare minimum, at least six to ten times as much RAM (memory) as the largest image file you plan to work with on a regular basis. Many digital photos can amount to 18–60MB, which translates into 180–600MB of RAM for each image you want open at once. If you're working with more reasonably sized 4MB images but need to have ten of them open at one time, you still need tons of memory to do the job.
Without sufficient RAM, all the bucks you spend on a super-speedy microprocessor are totally wasted. Your other heavy-duty hardware is going to come to a screeching halt every time you scroll, apply a filter, or perform any of a number of simple functions. That's because without enough RAM to keep the entire image in memory at once — plus your image editor's Undo files (basically copies of the image in its most recent states) — your computer is forced to write some or all of the image to your hard disk to make room for the next portion it needs to work with.
Digital photography can produce some large images, too, especially if you're working with a serious camera in the 8 megapixel (or more) range and choose to save your files in the highest-quality mode. An 18MB image is fairly common, so you should be prepared with as much RAM as you can cram into your computer.
Most computer systems have three to four memory slots, which can each hold a 256–512MB memory stick. Loading your computer with 2GB (or more) of memory is not at all outlandish and is relatively inexpensive. Any Mac or PC with 512MB or less of RAM is hopelessly underequipped for digital photography. Beefing up your memory can be the least expensive and most dramatic speed enhancement you can make.
If you work with large digital photos, your photo-editing program may not have enough RAM to keep more than one or two images in memory at one time. When this happens, the program must continually swap image information out to the hard disk to make room for any changes you make to the images. Having a faster processor might not make a difference: lack of sufficient memory can slow everything down through a poky hard drive bottleneck.
 | If you feel that your current computer is running slow, try adding memory before upgrading to a faster processor. You might be surprised at the results! |
| 
