Few image editing programs are as powerful as Photoshop, but all that power can take a toll on your PC or Mac. Fortunately, there are a couple of simple tweaks you can make to coax optimal performance from the program without dropping thousands of dollars on a new computer.

Colin Smith at PhotoshopCAFE has compiled a number of useful tips to keep Photoshop humming along.

Key takeaways:

* Adjusting the start-up menu: Hide the home screen and using the “Legacy New Document Interface” you can speed start-up time.
* File handling: Configure Photoshop so that the “open recent file” menu displays up to 100 files, not the standard 25. This way, you’ll find what you’re looking for faster.
* Increasing RAM: Change available RAM usage in the Performance menu to 80 percent.
* Dedicate a clean SSD as a scratch disk: When Photoshop is processing a file and reaches the limit of your RAM, it punts the processing over to the hard drive. If your drive is full, or close to it, your performance will suffer. Smith recommends installing an SSD to serve as a full-time, dedicated scratch disk for Photoshop when the RAM is pushed to the max.
* Don’t copy and paste, drag-and-drop: Every time you hit “copy” in Photoshop, it saves that data to the clipboard and keeps it there even after  you hit “paste.” Rather than consume memory with copied data that you’re only using once, Smith advises dragging and dropping corrections or information into your Photoshop file instead.

Adobe has its own set of suggestions to keep Photoshop zipping along here.

More Great Software Tips:

10 Great Portrait Retouching Tips

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LUTs vs. Presets – What You Need to Know