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deliverance
Inspiring
August 17, 2018
Question

Photoshop cannot handle big dimensions?

  • August 17, 2018
  • 6 replies
  • 1788 views

Hi,

I'm making in Photoshop a trade show (expo) wall print 5m (16' 4¾") x 2,5m (6' 6¾") with a photo on the background.

As I understood in the very beginning that this size would be super slow to edit with PS, I made a Photoshop file with 1/10 dimensions of the final size and thought to make it x 10 size before exporting the final document. Utilizing Smart Objects, etc.

Yet, now that I try make the file x10 size Photoshop cannot even make that complaining that scratch disks are full.

I have tens of GB free space and 36 GB RAM in iMac 2017 3,8 Ghz Intel Core i5.

What can I do?             

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    6 replies

    T
    Test Screen Name
    Legend
    August 17, 2018

    Only tens of GB? Get hundreds.

      jbm007
      Community Expert
      jbm007Community Expert
      Community Expert
      August 17, 2018

      1 TB drives can be purchased for $100.00 now

      SSD drives are $ 200

      you want to play..............you got to pay   LOL

        D
        deliveranceAuthor
        Inspiring
        August 17, 2018

        I realized there's an external drive with few tens of GB's more of free space.

        By included that to PS scratch disks I was able to thwart the scratch disks full message.

        //

        My takeaway is that tens of GB's it's not enough for the biggest bitmap prints, but you'd optimally need something like 100+ GB of free scratch disk space.

        D
        deliveranceAuthor
        Inspiring
        August 17, 2018

        My typical work flow is make everything HIRES. And then downscale, when needed.

        //

        As said, I started with 5000x2500 300ppi – and while realizing that's too heavy to work up, I changed it – utilizing Smart Objects – to 1/10.

        A more straight forward way might have been to use 5000x2500 100ppi from start on – albeit that would have been about 3 times slower than working with 500x250 300ppi.

        //

        In all of these cases Photoshop on an efficient iMac (with tens of GB's free

        pace) is really struggling (which includes the scratch disk full msg popping at times) – which is the gist of my post

        D Fosse
        Community Expert
        D FosseCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        August 17, 2018

        5000 x 2500 pixels is not a big file at all. There shouldn't be any problems whatsoever with that.

        If you get scratch disk full-messages, you do not have "an efficient iMac". Then it's low on disk space, and you need to address that.

        BTW downscaling with smart objects doesn't do anything. It's still the same original number of pixels, and that's all that matters. So I repeat, with emphasis: Physical print size is completely irrelevant to Photoshop. It only works with pixels.

        D
        deliveranceAuthor
        Inspiring
        August 17, 2018

        I guess you've never done anything for print

        I'm not talking about pixels – as ppi is NOT releavant with pixels

        D Fosse
        Community Expert
        D FosseCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        August 17, 2018

        I suspect you have a real problem with the "scratch disk full" message. You need to clear out space on your drive ASAP.

        Photoshop moves massive amounts of data around, and it reserves a portion of your hard drive for storing temporary working data. That's the scratch disk. RAM is never enough, however much you have. RAM is just a cache for your scratch disk.

          Marianne-Deiters
          Marianne-Deiters
          Participating Frequently
          August 17, 2018

          Photoshop supports max. 300.000 x 300.000 pixels

          You could try a smaller file size. Big prints don’t need very high resolutions because you look at them from afar

            D Fosse
            Community Expert
            D FosseCommunity Expert
            Community Expert
            August 17, 2018

            Forget about size, Photoshop doesn't care about size. How many pixels?

            D
            deliveranceAuthor
            Inspiring
            August 17, 2018

            3937 x 1969

            and that x10

            D Fosse
            Community Expert
            D FosseCommunity Expert
            Community Expert
            August 17, 2018

            Well, that's very small - there's no way you can blow that up much.

            The basic unit in Photoshop is the pixel. You can't invent pixels. You need to have a sufficient number of pixels to begin with. The final resolution and size you then end up with, is given by the simple formula pixels per inch. That's the ppi number.

            You need to familiarize yourself with this concept right away. Pixels per inch. That expression means exactly what it says.

            For this purpose, you need a decent resolution of around 100 ppi. This way it can be seen from fairly close up and still be crisp with good detail.

            Then you just put that into the ppi formula, to determine how many pixels you need to have in the file.

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