Digital BW, The Print

Is there any way to free up Photoshop by spooling a print? A typical
print taking about 7 1/2 minutes through the printer keeps Photoshop
busy for 7 minutes of that time. I can answer e-mail, surf the web or
anything BUT PS. I'd like to start tweaking the next print during that
time. 

It can't take Photoshop that long to send the file to the printer. I
don't think it's the CPU,, memory or USB 2 hub because I can print
from another application to another printer (same hub) without slowing
things down. It's like Photoshop just won't spool off to a print
buffer for some reason. 

PS 7.0, XP, 1.5 P4 w 1 gb of memory printing using an Epson 1280 via
USB 2 hub. 

Ideas?