My friend Philip Andrews of the excellent Better Photoshop Techniques magazine has just authored a white paper on optimizing Photoshop speed and performance. If you are putting new system together (or thinking about upgrading a current system with new RAM or hard drive), this paper can help you understand what will be most helpful.
Even if you aren’t looking for new hardware, Philip outlines preferences and other settings that can improve performance for the way you use the program.
But, wait, there’s more. Philip and his colleagues at DI magazine have also released one of the coolest iPad magazine applications I’ve seen. The app integrates the ability to control Photoshop with the magazine articles, so you can have an article literally lead you through the steps in Photoshop as it describes the workflow. This is built on the Configurator capabilities that John Nack dreamed up when he was the Photoshop product manager. Thanks to both of you for pushing the envelope.