While researching methods of loading Applications for my messy apps post, I started looking into which files Adobe Photoshop CS 5 was actually loading. Turns out, there were a LOT of plugins that I’d never actually used that came bundled with it, and these were adding a lot of overhead during my graphics editing sessions. Instead of deleting stuff at random, here’s a simple fix to improve the loading time of Photoshop, and improve the snappiness during overall usage:

Go to “Preferences” > “Plug-Ins…” and disable “Load Extension Panels”. If you’re like me, and you’ve never seen these extension panels, nor have you ever used them for anything, it’s a safe bet that this can be disabled. The next launch was considerably faster, and the overall performance seems better.