Setting 'Preferences' in CS3

Clive R. Haynes FRPS

The 'Performance ' dialogue box will depend upon individual choices and how computers are configured in terms of available RAM, numbers of drives/disks and 'scratch disk' preferences.

My system is arranged so that Drive 'C' is available for 'Scratch Disk' purposes. However, more usually, the 'Scratch Disk' would be assigned to another drive or partition.
Without digging too deeply and becoming too technical, the 'Scratch Disk' is a way of enabling Photoshop to perform complex instructions more efficiently by 'assigning' part of its 'memory usage' to a different area of the system so as to minimise conflict with other on-going operations. It's all about improving stability and efficiency.

History States: The 'default' number is 20 and this works for me. Should you need more, do remember that the larger the amount of 'History', the larger amount of RAM that is required to support it.

Cache Levels: These are usually set to 6 or (as here) 8