Processing is contingent upon PreRender, Blur, and Animation settings. Depending on which options you choose, you can increase the processing speed:

• When more than one non-static layer has blur shadows, Global Blur is faster, although all shadows are blurred with the same unique colour and appear under all other layers.
• When there is a combination of animated and non-animated layers, speed depends on the blur shadows. If animated text has blurred shadows, Global Blur is faster. If you want a static blurred shadow, and a non-blurred animated layer, Layer Blur is faster.
• If you have static layers only (no animation), speed depends on the number of layers and whether PreRender can be used. Global Blur is faster since it uses PreRender. The processing speed of Layer Blur is the same with one or two layers. However, it becomes progressively slower with a higher number of layers and if the layers use blur shadows.