Photoshop affected by slow network printing?

This is a question that seems really odd to me, and I’m sure it does to you as well.Â I have actually found out that it does have some affect on Photoshop for whatever reason.

First let me brief you on the setup I had that brought up this issue.Â Earlier this year I bought myself a laptop (Dell XPS M1530) and connected it to my wireless network.Â I then setup my desktop computer to share its printers with the surrounding devices.Â It all worked fine even thought I noticed it was a bit slow when printing to the network printer.

I know that network printing is slower than local printing, so I didn’t think too much about it.Â I then had another problem that I thought was a separate issue from the slow printing.Â My Photoshop (CS3) was loading fast, but as soon as I opened an image it would freeze for a minute or two.Â I knew that the problem was not in my computers hardware as it is loaded with 4GB memory.

This is when I started hunting for why my Photoshop was slow when opening an image.Â I found out that it was an issue with my default printer being on a network.Â I put Adobe PDF as my default printer, and now Photoshop loaded images quick and without freezing.

I later found out that all I had to do to speed up my network printing was configure it differently.Â In essence, I tricked my computer into thinking it is local, but really it is on the network.Â Below are the steps I took:

Go into “Control Panel >> Printers >> Add Printer”
Add A Local Printer >> Create A New Port >> Local Port
Enter a port name of the printer’s network location (Eg. \\DESKTOP-PC\Printer)
Then go through the rest of the process selecting the right brand name
Set this printer as default and your printing will fly across the network at amazing speeds

I hope this article helps some of you out there with the same problem.Â Probably isn’t an overly common problem, but drop me a line if this works for you!

Photoshop Slicing & CSS Coding

Tags: network, printing

Written by Brenley Dueck

5 Responses to “Photoshop affected by slow network printing?”

Mike Says:
November 30th, 2008 at 11:55 pm
Actually, it seems that Photoshop has severe problems with any kind of networking.
If you have a network drive mapped (in Windows) which is being used to store files, having any files from the network in the Open Recent menu will completely bog down PS opening files, regardless of local or network.
A workaround is to set the number of files in the Open Recent menu to 0 – frustrating, but at least it speeds up PS file operations tremendously.
admin Says:
November 30th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
Great tip Mike!
Steve Says:
December 4th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
I am not on a network, but Photoshop is (or was) extremely slow. Casting around for fixes I came across this – and setting “Recent file list” to zero has improved almost everything – certainly worth trying!
K.Lokesh Says:
April 6th, 2010 at 6:37 am
Make sure your default printer is not a networked printer
it solved my problem. THANKS !!
K.Lokesh Says:
April 6th, 2010 at 6:41 am
I did’t use your method ,i changed to my default printer to local printer which is a dummy printer instead of the working network printer.
it solved my problem. THANKS !!