If you intend using the masks with the relief images using an application such as Photoshop, you will find operations run a lot faster if you allocate more “memory,” or “RAM” (random access memory), to the application – around four or five times the size of image that you are working on is desirable. For example, if you are working on an image of 4 MB, say, you will find operations run a lot faster (sometimes by as much as 400%) if you allocate 20 MB to your application. When Photoshop needs more memory than the amount allocated, it will resort to your hard disk for extra memory (“virtual memory”, or “scratch disk” space), a process which is a great deal slower than using “real” memory (RAM). Note: to access more than 8 MB of RAM (provided you have more than 8MB of RAM installed), you must have 32-bit addressing switched on (“Memory” Control Panel on older Macs – not an option on Power PCs, which all run in 32-bit).
If you intend converting a map to color, manipulating it, and finally outputting it as separated film – do your colorizing in RGB mode, and only switch to CMYK immediately prior to saving it for the final time. RGB is much less demanding on RAM than CMYK, since it uses only three channels, whereas CMYK mode uses four.
Most page layout applications use low-resolution “preview” versions of TIFF images, and so they don’t usually require that you allocate more than the recommended RAM to the application to use the maps. Exceptions may occur if you are working on a lengthy document or a document with a large number of TIFF images.
If you are using Illustrator or FreeHand you may need to allocate more memory when using large or complex maps, especially those with multiple layers, or if you are using the relief TIFFs in your maps.
End of Chapter 5
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