Color
Picker - lets you decide which color picker to use photoshop's or the operating
system. Unless doing web work on the mac I would recommend using photoshop's
color picker.
Interpolation
- Bicubic is generally the best especially for continuous tone images which
is what is most often used in photoshop.
Anti-alias
postscript - Should be left on, will give smother edges when pasting in a
vector image
Export
Clipboard - Allows copying and pasting between photoshop and other programs.
This is generally left on. I would try not to copy and paste graphics between
programs, this is usually the worst way to get a graphic into a program.
Short
Pantone Names - Saves pantone names in the correct format for most page layout
programs.
Show
Tool Tips - Shows the name and keyboard shortcut of a tool when holding the
cursor over a tool for a few seconds.
Beep
when done - Computer gives an alert sound when longer tasks are finished.
Good if you have a slow computer and read while photoshop is applying a complex
filter.
Dynamic
Color Sliders - Colors change dynamically when the sliders are adjusted in
the color palette.
Save
Palette Locations - Should be left on, saves the location of the palettes
when you quit the program.
Saving
Files
Image
preview options - Gives different options for the preview saved with the file.
This is up to the user to decide, I prefer giving my files descriptive names
and don't save a preview.
Append
file extensions - Mac only, I recommend leaving it on but it is also up to
the user.
2.5
file compatibility - Should be left off unless you are giving native photoshop
files to someone using photoshop 2.5
Display
channels in color - If this is selected the channels are displayed in color,
if unchecked the channels are displayed in greyscale. I prefer leaving it
off
Use
system palette and diffusion dither - Should be turned off, it only affects
display when working in 256 colors. You should use photoshop in at least thousands
of colors preferably millions.
Video
LUT Animation - This should be turned off unless you know your video card
supports this. Very few windows cards do but most mac cards do. If it is turned
on photoshop uses a look up table in the video card for display can speed
up some cases when working in CMYK. I recommend leaving it off.
Cursors
- Changes how the cursors look in photoshop. I recommend brush size and precise.
Plug-ins
- Lets you select your plug-ins folder. If photoshop suddenly forgets you
have a scanner or is missing lots of filters reselect this
Scratch
disk - Photoshop uses a lot of memory and used hard drive space for temporary
files. This lets you select one or more drives for this purpose. The primary
scratch disk should be your fastest drive that is defragmented often. Many
users, including myself, devote an entire drive to this task and don't use
it for anything else.
Photoshop
generally uses 3x5 times the files size for temporary files, often it can
be much more. So the 9m file we discussed earlier will need at least 50megs
of free drive space to be able to open and work with. When working with large
files with multiple layers photoshop can easily use several hundred megs of
hard drive space.
Cache
Levels - Photoshop uses a low resolution image for display. Setting this option
higher uses the low res image more. This is basically a trade off between
the accuracy of the display and the speed of screen redraw. It only affects
display, the default value of 4 seems to work fine.
Use
Cache for histograms - Gives a much faster histogram at the expense of a slightly
less accuracy. Should be left on.
Memory
- Windows only, sets how much of the available ram on the computer photoshop
uses. The default of 75% works well, it may be increased to 90% if you don't
run other programs along with photoshop.
Other
preferences
Units
and Rulers , Transparency and Gamut, and Guide and Grid are self explanatory
ask me if you have any questions.
On
the Macintosh you allot the amount of memory each program uses by going to
the program icon and then going to file and get info. I would recommend running
the programs you normally run, then go to the apple menu and about this macintosh
and seeing what the largest unused block is. Multiply this number by 90% and
set the prefered size to that number.
I
would recommend leaving virtual memory off or setting it to one meg higher
then the installed ram. If your mac has less then 64 megss of ram I would
recommend purchasing more. A 64 meg ram chip is less then $100 right now and
will increase the performance of your machine greatly. Especially if you plan
on using Photoshop.
Preferences