The architecture of Adobe Photoshop™ 2.5 was designed to enable acceleration of operations that take a long time to execute. Many of these slow, calculation intensive routines can be accelerated using processors other than the computer's CPU.
To permit both high-quality results and acceleration, Adobe has licensed Photoshop™ code to several leading hardware manufacturers so they could develop "Adobe charged™" software to accelerate Photoshop operations that work with their DSP (Digital Signal Processor) and RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computing) add-in cards. Acceleration products for Adobe Photoshop are available in a variety of configurations, feature sets and prices for every Macintosh® with NuBus® or PDS capability. These products save valuable production time by letting the co-processor share time-consuming image processing tasks. The Adobe charged logo identifies products that deliver high-quality results identical to unaccelerated Photoshop operations.
The AV DSP Power Plug-in enables Photoshop to take advantage of the DSP3210 built into the Quadra 660AV and 840AV. With the AV DSP Power Plug-in installed Photoshop can use it to accelerate many tasks in the same way as Adobe charged products. (See below)
INSTALLATION AND OPERATION
1) Copy the AV DSP Power Plug-in into the Adobe Photoshop 2.5.1 Plug-ins folder on a Quadra 660AV or 840AV.
Note: The AV DSP Power Plug-in will not function properly with pre-2.5.1 versions of Adobe Photoshop. If you own Adobe Photoshop 2.5, a free update will automatically be sent to you via first class mail when you send your completed registration card to Adobe. If you purchased a 2.5 upgrade more than six weeks ago and have not yet received your free 2.5.1 update, please call Adobe Technical Support at 1-408-986-6510 (USA and Canada only). Be prepared to clearly record a message with your name, address and Adobe Photoshop serial number.
2) Launch Adobe Photoshop. The plug-in automatically detects the Quadra AV's DSP and uses it to process certain operations and filters.
PERFORMANCE
Several key factors determine how much acceleration to expect from the AV DSP Power Plug-in.
1) Image size: the larger the image, the longer an operation will take.
2) RAM : allocate at least 3X image size of RAM to Adobe Photoshop for optimum acceleration and performance. Using the virtual memory (scratch disk) instead of RAM can degrade acceleration. (Using the computer's fast internal hard drive as the scratch disk helps some.)
3) Parameters and settings: different options may require different amounts of processing.
4) CPU and DSP processor speed: certain operations, for example Rotate, benefit from DSP acceleration on the Quadra 660AV, but may not benefit noticeably on the faster Quadra 840AV.
5) Multi-processing: additional DSP cards to distribute the processing work will increase performance on features that are accelerated only slightly using the AV's DSP alone. See OPTIONS.
FEATURES
Given the performance factors and exceptions noted above, the AV DSP Power plug-in can accelerate the following operations and filters between 10% and 300%.
Filters
Blur
Blur More
Gaussian Blur
Sharpen
Sharpen More
Unsharp Mask
High Pass
Custom
Sharpen Edges
Find Edges
Despeckle
Emboss
Fragment
Operations
Resize: Image Size, Scale
Rotate
Skew
Perspective
RGB to CMYK mode change
OPTIONS
You can disable DSP acceleration, or enable multi-processing for even faster performance, with additional DSP3210 cards. To select these options, choose About AV DSP Power from the About Plug-ins submenu under the Apple Menu.
Disable acceleration by selecting the None radio button. Each time Adobe Photoshop is launched acceleration is automatically reactivated. To permanently disable acceleration, remove the AV DSP Power Plug-in from the Plug-ins folder.
Enable multi-processing when additional DSP3210 cards from Spectral Innovations are installed by selecting the Both option. Other DSP acceleration cards, including DSP3210 cards from other manufacturers, will not function with this plug-in.
OTHER ACCELERATION PRODUCTS
The companies listed below offer Adobe charged products for Photoshop. Please direct all inquiries regarding availability, pricing, features, performance, and support to your dealer, distributor or the company. Adobe is not equipped to answer questions about or provide support for these products.
•DayStar Digital™
•Radius™
•RasterOps®
•Spectral Innovations™
•SuperMac™
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
Apple Macintosh Quadra 660AV or 840AV*
Adobe Photoshop 2.5.1 with a minimum allocation of 5 MB of RAM
(For optimum performance a RAM allocation of 3X image size is recommended)
*or other Macintosh with DSP3210 cards from Spectral Innovations
The AV DSP Power Plug-in was developed for Adobe Systems by Spectral Innovations of San Jose, CA. For information on their DSP3210 add-in cards supported by the AV DSP Power Plug-in call (408) 955-0366 (USA).
Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop, Adobe charged, the Adobe logo, and the Adobe charged logo are trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated which may be registered in certain jurisdictions. Apple and Macintosh are registered trademarks, and Quadra is a trademark of Apple Computer, Inc. NuBus is a registered trademark of Texas Instruments Incorporated. SuperMac is a trademark of SuperMac Technology, Inc. All other brand names and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.
