Defragmenting for Easier Photo Editing

Not only do I like to take pictures of all sorts of things but I also like to edit them for numerous reasons. I like to make photo cards, calendars, and well…pretty much anything you can put a photograph on. I also like to edit graphics and photographs for my various websites. For most of my websites I use cartoons I buy from other people and then edit them to better fit my website or blog. I swear every time I sit down to edit I’m like a dog with a new toy.

The thing about editing graphics is, those files are huge. When you start playing around with them they get even bigger. For instance I may change the color of an object, or add two graphics together, or add text to the background. There are any number of things you can do to a photograph or a graphic to customize it. Heck sometimes the finished product isn’t even recognizable from the original image. The thing about all of this customization through editing is that it really makes a mess of your memory. Computer memory that is…although sometimes I think it makes of mess of my personal memory. Like when I could swear I had just changed something on an image only to realize I hadn’t done it (or hadn’t saved it). Anyway. After a few hours of playing with a large file I find that my editing software sometimes slows down. Maybe it wouldn’t be noticeable to everyone, but it bugs me.

What are the solutions to this annoyance? Well first I make sure I delete any files that I’m not going to use. You know…changes I made that I decided weren’t good enough. Then I make sure I defrag my hard drive every few hours (if I’m really smokin’ on the editing) or at the end of the day, if I was just moderately grooving. I know it may seem excessive, but really, I edit a lot and it seems to improve the speed at which changes are saved and additional images are pulled up.

Have you found defragmenting your computer helps to make photo editing easier and quicker?

Photo Credit: Kunta Tokyo’s

May 29th, 2009 by birdievogel | Posted in Photo Software | (0)