Some filters and effects are very memory-intensive. The following techniques can help improve performance when applying these filters and effects:

• Select the Preview option in filter or effect dialog boxes to save time and prevent unintended results.

• Change the settings. Some commands, such as Glass, are extremely memory-intensive. Try different settings to increase their speed.

• Make sure Illustrator has enough RAM allocated for performing tasks and for the scratch disk (the temporary disk space used to work with bitmap images).

• If you plan to print to a grayscale printer, convert a copy of the bitmap image to grayscale before applying filters. Note, however, that in some cases, applying a filter to a color bitmap image and then converting it to grayscale may not have the same result as applying the same filter directly to a grayscale version of the image.