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The image exceeds the size Save for Web & Devices was designed for

Forum|Forum|15 years ago
June 10, 2010
5 replies
44373 views

I just upgraded from CS3 to CS5. I assumed that Save for Web & Devices would have been redesigned so that it would not complain with modern large photos that they were just too big!

However, it still does. I just don't get this. Photoshop in general now is editing very large images. It should be able to handle them also in this feature.

Is this just a legacy message, or is it really true that this feature can only handle small images?

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer

Save for web was originally designed to optimize web graphics by squeezing out bytes while retaining quality. It was not meant to scale and then optimize large images. This is demonstrated in the alert message.

You could submit a feature request to Adobe to alter the original intent of SFW.

SFW may display 4 versions of an image in various types of optimization. This requires saving 4 temporary files. Imagine trying to save a huge image 4 times at once through 'File-Save As'. This is why you see that alert message. It takes time to generate those temp files, especially when you throw a huge file at it.

Consider a scripted solution to this where a copy of your image is first reduced, then transferred to SFW.

T

texas360

Participating Frequently

Our original full sphere panorama images are 6000 x 3000px 16bit 105mb .TIF's.

Photoshop CS4 works

We converted them to 6000 x 3000px 8bit .tif. When using Save for Web and Devices we would get the "Warning 'Image exceeds". We clicked "yes" knowing that it would take some time.... but that was ok. The two pane panel properly dispalyed our 2 images. Original pane shows 7.5mb. By using the compression slider we are able to get the file down to our desired file size of 6.5mb.

Photoshop CS5 does not work

We converted them to 6000 x 3000px 8bit .tif. When using Save for Web and Devices we would get the "Warning 'Image exceeds". We clicked "yes" knowing that it would take some time.... but that was ok. The two pane panel is displayed now in RED overlay and fails to let us go any farther.

Obviously, programmers really do know the maximum file size that can be handled in Save for Web. Question is why isn't the maximum file size shown in the documentation... then there would no SFW issue to talk about here in the forum.

Guess that is why I am still using CS4 for conversions and later using CS5.5 for our normal work flow.

/s/

Dave still at 360Texas.com

A

Anonymous

CS4 and CS5 are two different programs. CS4 is based on Carbon and CS5 is Cocoa. You may be experiencing a bug that crept in through this transition. You can report the bug here.

SFW's image formats (GIF/PNG/JPG) may have their own unique size limitations so the initial warning you see before SFW loads would not be able to know your intent yet. This is why a general warning appears.

If SFW was actually used on images intended for web and device display (as it was intended) then there would be no SFW issue to talk about here in the forum.

T

texas360

Participating Frequently

Thank you for your reply.

Sorry I forgot to mention, we are on a PC Windows Vista.

So I know CS 4 SFW works and CS 5 SFW does not work. Our output is to .jpg only.

Sheldon McLean

Participant

any update on this?

I don't care about the intent of the warning, or the best time to resize, sharpen.

I just don't want to have to see the warning again, ever.

Any way to get rid of it?

Thanks, Sheldon.

A

Anonymous

As this thread started with a user's experience with a newly released CS5, you would need to install any CS5 update that has been issued since then.

Supposing that you do not see any change after applying all relevant updates, you should probably try the easy workarounds suggested previously.

Sheldon McLean

Participant

thanks for your response Marian.

I am running the the most up-to-date CS5, but this warning has been there for years (in older CS versions).

I skimmed the thread, but I don't see any easy workarounds. Can you point me in the right direction?

--Sheldon.

Chris Cox

Legend

Save For Web is not intended to resize images, just to take the appropriately sized image and optimize if for the web (reduce number of colors, reduce quality, strip metadata, etc.).

The warning is there for a reason, and it is a valid and true warning.

S

snorkelerAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thanks for the clarification, Chris. I did a search of Help to see if I could find where Adobe told us this about this menu command, and found nothing useful. Where is this menu command (its purpose, and limitations) explained?

Perhaps then you can explain the best way to take a fully edited, cropped, photo, very large, and resize it prior to applying Save for Web and Devices.

Save as doesn't let you change sizes, so that can't be it. Do you really have to first use 'resize', then Save for Web? That seems cumbersome if you have hundreds of pictures to process.

Is there really no way to go straight from a full size picture to a certain size/type/quality level in one step? Say taking a 2400x1600 pixel PSD image, and creating a 480x320 .jpg quality level 10 version? And then doing this as a batch operation on a folder of images?

C

charles badland

Inspiring

snorkeler wrote:

Is there really no way to go straight from a full size picture to a certain size/type/quality level in one step? Say taking a 2400x1600 pixel PSD image, and creating a 480x320 .jpg quality level 10 version? And then doing this as a batch operation on a folder of images?

Of couse there is...

Look up Batch Process and Photoshop Actions in the Help file.

A

Anonymous

Correct answer

Save for web was originally designed to optimize web graphics by squeezing out bytes while retaining quality. It was not meant to scale and then optimize large images. This is demonstrated in the alert message.

You could submit a feature request to Adobe to alter the original intent of SFW.

SFW may display 4 versions of an image in various types of optimization. This requires saving 4 temporary files. Imagine trying to save a huge image 4 times at once through 'File-Save As'. This is why you see that alert message. It takes time to generate those temp files, especially when you throw a huge file at it.

Consider a scripted solution to this where a copy of your image is first reduced, then transferred to SFW.

Tai_Lao

Inspiring

No one, absolutely nobody needs large images on the web. That's why Save for Web was designed for web-sized images.

Photoshop is working as designed.

S

snorkelerAuthor

Participating Frequently

Tai Lao misunderstands my question. I am referring to the size of the image you begin before you produce a smaller web version.

The problem is that Photoshop appears to have trouble handling large images for this process. Typically, you edit a large photo image. You don't want to resize it, but rather just make a web version (or several smaller versions). That's what this menu command is for, presumably.

Here's how to replicate this: open a 20-30MB photo. Go to File:Save for Web and Devices. You'll get a dialog that says: "The image exceeds the size Save for Web & Devices was designed for. You may experience out of memory errors and slow performance. Are you sure you want to continue?"

Now, I'm working on a machine with tons of RAM, lots of free disk space for paging, no issues there. No other PS operation complains. Why this one? There are lots of image files now that are above 10MB. PS should be able to cope.

To be fair, despite this warning, it will generally work anyway.

I just think in this price zone, PS ought to be able to handle today's large images gracefully. Canon's pro cameras now produce 20MB+ images.

S

snorkelerAuthor

Participating Frequently

It is quite easy to discern what Adobe intended... if you are a web/UI designer. I can understand everyone's confusion if they are not web designers. Web/UI designers always work at 100% so scaling is not a big concern in SFW.

I've noticed that SFW has been heavily used by many as a crutch for failing to understand image preparation. We see it often here in the forum.

Someone's image won't save well to JPG that can be emailed to a client? It is probably in 16bit or CMYK. Instead of advising them to sort out their workflow and understand that CMYK and 16 bit imagery is not supported in JPG, we simply say "use SFW". While software is certainly there to make our lives easier, it cannot replace our own common sense. There's no warning on our flatbed scanner that yells at us for scanning a 5x7 photo at 2400 ppi when all we need is a printed reproduction at 4x6 at 300 ppi.

As noted in the link I posted, sharpening is an often needed step after resampling. As SFW does not offer sharpening, it makes sense to prepare an image for the web at 100% before going to SFW.

Of course, there is a place to make feature requests here by following the 'Contact' links at the top and bottom of every adobe.com web page.

My teenage daughter taught me the perils of trying to infer 'intent'. As she succinctly said 'You DON'T know why I did that!" She certainly was correct.

I prefer documentation over trying to guess how something works, or its 'intent'.

As every change you make to an original image degrades it, we prefer to do as little as possible. Preserving the original sharpness in a good picture is better than using 'unsharp mask', which, good as it is, changes things.

We are going from high resolution RAW images to smaller images that display well on a small device such as an iPhone or iPad. We'd like to do that in as few steps as possible, for efficiency. That's all. To the extent that PS makes that possible, we love it. To the extent it makes that elaborate and awkward, we like it less.

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