Photoshop Elements 8, processor usage

[RonH]

Just installed PSE 8 and ready to learn!
I use HP6500 series laptop with Vista SP2 and a Duo 1.8Ghz, 2 core CPU. The CPU is within the Adobe requirements specs but seems to be working quite hard with this software even when its opened but not being used. (I have checked that it is this prog using the CPU and not something else).
Is this normal and/or harmful? I have also set the Power Plan to 'High Performance'.
Ron

[Colin Southern]

Hi Ron,

Usually this is a sign that you don't have enough RAM. With Vista you need an absolute bare-bones minimum of 2GB - but Photoshop (or PSE) pushes the requirements even higher.

The problem is though that many laptops can only handle 2GB RAM and even if it can handle 4GB, the operating system only sees 3.3GB (or there abouts) (assuming that you're using the 32 bit vertion of Vista).

If you're using the 64 bit version of Vista and your laptop supports more than 4GB (usually 8GB) then it's a great investment to "max it out".

To get an idea if this is the problem or not, start PSE and then press ctrl + shift + escape to bring up task manager. Click on the performance tab - and if the graph of memory usage is around 1/2 way or above then that's more then likely the problem.

[KentDub]

Hi Ron,

I agree with Colin - it sounds like lack of RAM. You can try closing all other programs, but this most likely won't get you to where you want to be. See if there are memory upgrades avaliable for your laptop, which will be cheaper than buying a new system. What Colin says is true - there is a limit to how much RAM you can put in laptops. If you have a 32-bit OS target 4gb of ram. If you have a 64-bit, and you're going to keep that system for a while and the laptop supports it, opt for 8gb.

[RonH]

Hei and thanks for your inputs.
My RAM seems not to be maxed out when the CPU/PSE8 is working hard. However, there is a photo indexing feature in PSE and it may be building up the index in the "Organizer". It seems to be a lot 'quieter now after some 2days following installation ... I also swapped a few of their settings around to suit my filing system and this may have driven it 'nuts'!!
Ron