Can't place a background image in Illustrator

[Christopher Liam Ivey]

I'm trying to place a large image in the background of an Illustrator composition.  The canvas is large, and the image file is 300dpi, but the file size is only 74 MB, and I'm simply trying to place it as a linked file - I should have tons of memory to spare.  Nevertheless, I keep getting the message "Insufficicient Memory was Available to complete the operation".  This makes no sense.  Is Illustrator trying to re-rasterize the entire canvas in RAM?  What's going on here? 

Does anyone know a workaround? I can't make the composition any smaller. (it's a 91" x 114" trade show background).  Cutting the resolution is possible, but shouldn't be necessary.

I have 16GB of RAM and a hefty graphics card.   I'm using the latest build of Illustrator on Windows 7.

[John Mensinger]

Have you rebooted then re-attempted? Would you consider doing it in InDesign instead?

Also, you surely don't need 300ppi (and the printer won't want it). You should be in contact with the output provider, determining a typical viewing distance, and agreeing upon a lower resolution.

[Christopher Liam Ivey]

As I said, cutting the resolution to 150 dpi is possible, but shouldn't be necessary.

The original art is actually vector art, but was created in RGB space with overlapping transparencies and blend modes.  Illustrator's colot space conversion algorithm doesn't handle this well, since it first changes the color on a per-object basis, instead of per-pixel, then re-applies the blend modes - this results in unexpected color shifts. 

I had no problem opening the original composition in Photoshop at 300 dpi, then converting the flattened art.  Photoshop is more graceful with big files, and allows me to choose from multiple algorithms for converting the color space. Sadly, it seems that I can't bring the converted art back into Illustrator. 

I'm going to see if the printer will accept a flattened bitmap instead of an Illustrator file.  They don't handle InDesign files.

[jane-e · Accepted solution]

Do you still have the original Illustrator artwork? Can you export to .psd or .tiff instead of jpeg to see if that works?

[Christopher Liam Ivey]

I did that.  Curiously, both .psb and .tiff work fine, while .jpeg processing errors out.  However, something funny is going on with the image aspect ratio, since the graphic, (which was generated by simply opening the .ai file in Photoshop), is now compressed horizontally by about 15%.

I'm not sure if this is a Photoshop thing, since Photoshop wants to import the Illustrator file at 32000 pixels instead of the 34200 I'd expect.

This does mean I now have to redo the art I just sent to the printer.

[Christopher Liam Ivey]

Oh, great - Photoshop sets a 32K cap on pixels because somebody likes integer types.  Can't fricking win with this stuff.

I'm going to have to downscale the art, then re-import, then rescale, then resend as an Illustrator file.

[Christopher Liam Ivey]

Thanks everyone for your help.  I found out that:

1) Illustrator can't handle very large files in .jpeg format, but will open even larger files if you save as .psb or .tiff.

2) Photoshop has a maxInt cap on the pixel dimensions of the canvas, so if you open an Illustrator file in Photoshop, you must make sure it fits within the available pixels, otherwise Photoshop will simply constrain the canvas and distort the artwork.

3) You can open very large Illustrator files in Photoshop and use the tools there to handle issues with color profile conversions.

[Monika Gause]

A 74 MB JPEG?

That will be a huge file. And yes, Illustrator must uncompress it.