I recently upgraded the RAM in my PC.  I was in dire straits with my machine, running on 8 GB of DDR 3 1333 Ram.  Sounds pretty fast right?  Well try editing a 16 bit .PSD file that is 32″x36″ with over 25 layers, yeah that is a whopping 1.6 GIG picture, in Photoshop CS 5.  Now take the quick selection tool and see just how quick it isn’t!  I was in need of more RAM, but where would I even begin to find the right RAM and how much my motherboard can handle?

1. Method 1, get a program called Speccy.  This nifty little program will tell you how much RAM you currently have, how many slots you have available (if any), and all kinds of other cool numbers that many techies love but I don’t have the time to learn!
2. Method 2, head over to Crucials website and do a nifty little system scan.  Once you install the system scan, Crucial will not only tell you how much memory is in your computer, but it will also give you a list of Crucial memory that you can plug in to get it up to top speed.  You can order the RAM right off their site and be flying through your workflow in no time!
3. If Crucial is not the route you want to go, I still suggest using their system scanner to see what your motherboard can handle.  The last thing you want to do is buy more RAM than your system can handle.  Let me tell you from experience, if your system can only handle 6 Gigs of RAM and you put 8 in there, those last 2 Gigs are like the new kid at work, they are worthless!  After finding the right amount of RAM and speed of the RAM head over to either NEWEGG or AMAZON for the best deals online.

I ended up running through both methods, scrapped all of the RAM in my machine, and went with 16 Gigs of Corsair Vengeance from Amazon.  My machine is incredibly fast now, ripping through pixels like there is no tomorrow!  RAM is crazy cheap these days, take a look at your rig, run it through the specs and see if you can upgrade today.  You will be surprised by the difference in speed.

Blake Rudis

f.64 Academy and f.64 Elite are the brainchildren of Blake Rudis. While he is a landscape photographer, he is most passionate about post-processing images in Photoshop and mentoring others.

For Blake, it's all about the art and process synergy. He dives deep into complex topics and makes them easy to understand through his outside-the-box thinking so that you can use these tricks in your workflow today!