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Participant
April 11, 2021
Answered

Creating big billboard size banner in photoshop increase file size to over 20 GBs

  • April 11, 2021
  • 3 replies
  • 13985 views

Hello everyone!

 

I'm trying to create an image for medium size billboard (240-inch x 96-inch). As I start editing, photoshop got so laggy and when I save it as a PSB file (because i don't get option to save it as PSD) it sizes become 35 GB as shown in the below screenshot 

 

How can I create the billboard image in photoshop without getting a file size of 35 GB and also without any lag?

Correct answer spotvpreispodne

yeah, it's slightly more annoying though so keep all the layers and objects in vector format and not rasterized  

3 replies

Derek Cross
Community Expert
Community Expert
April 11, 2021

For images that are viewed from a distance, unlike those in books and magazine,  you don't need such a high resolution, something like 100PPI would be OK for this poster. Check what your printer wants, but normally it would be in RGB colour mode (sRGB space), and a PDF – a PDF/X-4 with Use Document Bleed Settings ticked.

D Fosse
Community Expert
Community Expert
April 11, 2021

Derek is right on the money. You don't normally need more pixels just because it's printed large! I don't know why everybody seems to think that, it's the most persistent myth in all of digital imaging.

 

Any high quality file from a good modern camera will work for anything, magazine spread or roadside billboard.

 

spotvpreispodne
Participant
April 11, 2021

Hey, create smaller presets of the same ratio in Illustrator and design there.

Since it's vecotr based therefore once you send it over to whoever's printing your billboard, they can enlarge it without losing quality. 

Participant
April 11, 2021

Thanks for the response.

Can I do the same thing in Photoshop?  Create smaller presets of the same ratio in Photoshop and design here.
I'm asking it because I'm not so much familiar with illustrator

 

 

spotvpreispodne
spotvpreispodneCorrect answer
Participant
April 11, 2021

yeah, it's slightly more annoying though so keep all the layers and objects in vector format and not rasterized  

Mylenium
Legend
April 11, 2021

I'm not clear what you are asking. You simply have to get used to the reality that this is an entirely different discipline of working. It simply seems you have a wrong understanding here and wrong expectations. If your own computer isn't top-of-the line, then you have to do some serious investing in new hardware to make it perform better, but otherwise everything is pretty much normal. You may want to educate yourself about some of the basics of large format printing with a simple web search.

 

Mylenium

Participant
April 11, 2021

@Mylenium  Thanks for the response. 

Brother, you didn't really get what I was trying to ask. I am trying to create a billboard-sized, 240 x 96 inch.
So to create this billboard design, should I create a preset of exactly that size? Or should I create a lower preset with the same ratio? For the above size if I create a preset of i.e 5000 x 2000 pixels (which converts into 16.6 x 6.66 inch), will the resolution of the image get affected once I print that billboard or not?

Because creating the lower preset is the only way to decrease the size of the file and improve performance. Sorry for bad English and bad explanation 

Participant
April 11, 2021

Current preset