RAM

The term memory is often used too loosely, because there’s more than one kind of memory in a computer, and it’s important not to get them mixed up. The two kinds of memory we’re most concerned with are random-access memory (RAM) and hard disk space.

RAM is the memory where your computer does most of its thinking. RAM comes as a set of chips on a small circuit board. In contrast, hard disk space is the memory where your computer stores documents, and I talk about that in the “Hard Disks” section later in this chapter. RAM is fast, so your computer and Photoshop do as much processing as possible using RAM, and therefore it’s a good idea to install as much RAM as possible. The problem is that RAM is much more expensive per gigabyte than hard disk space, so not everyone can afford to install the maximum amount of RAM their computer can take. In some cases, the cost of the memory chips required to fill a computer to capacity with RAM is more than the cost of the computer itself!