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Scratch Disk and file size issue's


imthebest

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I'm currently making a few banners (some pretty big) and it's totally killing my PS.

One in particular is 900cm x 230cm (Huge out door banner) and the scratch disk's are like 130gb on this one.

I can't even work on this thing, I'm like 10% complete and now when trying to use the gradient tool it can't process because it says scratch disk are full or that start up is full. I have a 500gb SSD and I'm only using 240gb so I know there's plenty of space. I also increased PS RAM allocation to 10GB (I have 16GB) and nothing so far is working, these files are just ridiculous.

I made another banner earlier about 300cm x 70cm and had a similar problem. I saved the doc as large format .psb and it was over 10gb on my HD.

Any help at all would be hugely appreciated.
 

ALB68

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Hi imthebest.
Welcome to the forum.
Gosh, I work in inches and a 900cm banner is like 36", that is not HUGE in my book. I only have 8GB of ram on my laptop set to 70% and I can do a 300ppi file of that size without incident. What resolution are you creating these banners in?

Oops --math error that is 354" -man that is huge. What version of PS. You may be exceeding some limits here.
When I try to make a new file of 900cm by 230cm at 300ppi I get a pop up message warning me that some older versions of PS are not compatible to sizes over 30,000 pixels in either dimension.
 
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imthebest

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Version 14.0 x64. Thank goodness you corrected that. I was thinking if 900cm isn't huge what scale does this guy work on :lol:


I have a

2013, 15" macbook pro retina
2.7 GHz Intel Core i7

16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 1024 MB

The resolution is set at 300px, the dimensions actually work out at 106299px X 27165 px
 

ALB68

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Version 14.0 x64. Thank goodness you corrected that. I was thinking if 900cm isn't huge what scale does this guy work on :lol:


I have a

2013, 15" macbook pro retina
2.7 GHz Intel Core i7

16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 1024 MB

The resolution is set at 300px, the dimensions actually work out at 106299px X 27165 px

You mean 300ppi. Are these banners going to be printed by a commercial printing firm ? How is the final output to be produced? What I am digging for is to see if there might be another approach to making them that won't take so many assets.
 

imthebest

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You mean 300ppi. Are these banners going to be printed by a commercial printing firm ? How is the final output to be produced? What I am digging for is to see if there might be another approach to making them that won't take so many assets.

Sorry yes 300ppi. Yeh there are going to be printed commercially in Europe.

I told the guys I would put the banners together and it's all going fine (apart from the huge file sizes) until I started this one.
 

ALB68

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Sorry yes 300ppi. Yeh there are going to be printed commercially in Europe.

I told the guys I would put the banners together and it's all going fine (apart from the huge file sizes) until I started this one.

Have you consulted with the printer? It could be that since these are banners and are not going to be viewed at a short distance more than likely, they could be created at less than 300ppi. Do not know what your content it is, but would it be possible to create these in panels and then put them together after your work on the panels is completed?
 

imthebest

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Yeh that's what I'm thinking. I might split this into 4 and then stitch them together after as flat layers. The only problem I have for now is that I have loads of images to stick together using gradients so I have to work with pretty big sizes.

Any recommendations on file types? Psd, psb, jpg? These files are huge


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

MrToM

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Splitting the image would be a good idea and as you are using CC could you not do that via Place Linked?

You'd have more files (PSD or otherwise) but linking them to one project file would mean less strain on PS.

You'd also have to work on each file independently but at least with only two files open in PS, the 'project' file and the one you're working on your set-up should cope better with it.

As each linked file gets updated when saved the 'project' file will always show the end result, but without the strain of handling all of it at once.

I'll admit I've not tried this on such a large scale but this seems the perfect opportunity to do so....and what have you got to lose?

I'd try this on a copy of your main file though......always keep the original well away from any 'experimentation'.

Can't guarantee it'll work but you never know....maybe worth a shot?

Regards.
MrTom.
 

ALB68

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Yeh that's what I'm thinking. I might split this into 4 and then stitch them together after as flat layers. The only problem I have for now is that I have loads of images to stick together using gradients so I have to work with pretty big sizes.

Any recommendations on file types? Psd, psb, jpg? These files are huge

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I would say your working files need to remain as PSDs. Final output? Possibly PDF. How are you planning to deliver them to the printer and what are his requirements? If you can reduce the resolution as I suggested that will help in handling this.
 

imthebest

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I would say your working files need to remain as PSDs. Final output? Possibly PDF. How are you planning to deliver them to the printer and what are his requirements? If you can reduce the resolution as I suggested that will help in handling this.


I'm 80-90% of the way there now. I started creating each layer in a separate document. Now I'm just trying to stitch them together. I tried to create the full size document and import them in but it didn't go to well. So I'm creating a few different sizes and stitching smaller panels together and will work up to the full size.

Possibly the biggest file EVER made in PS :banghead:
 

ALB68

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I'm 80-90% of the way there now. I started creating each layer in a separate document. Now I'm just trying to stitch them together. I tried to create the full size document and import them in but it didn't go to well. So I'm creating a few different sizes and stitching smaller panels together and will work up to the full size.

Possibly the biggest file EVER made in PS :banghead:

For a bitmap file that is huge. Too bad you couldn't have created it as vectors in Ai. It would have been a smaller file as vectors are resolution independent.
 

Tom Mann

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Guys, this discussion of preparing items 10 meters wide, entirely in PS, at resolutions appropriate for small prints, completely misses the point. How in the world do you think billboards were digitally produced, say 10 or 20 years ago when the memory and storage capacities of computers was vastly smaller?

The first thing to realize is that even for artwork this large, viewers expect certain items, especially text, to be sharp when reproduced to any size, and when viewed from any distance. Doing the graphics design elements in a vector application accomplishes this perfectly. Text, text efx, lines, Bezier curves (eg, the pen tool), shapes, solid colors, color gradients, and any graphics that can be done in Illustrator (or other vector based program) are almost always done that way. Obviously, to reap these benefits, the artwork must be exported in a file format that your printer will accept, and which supports vectors such as *.AI, *.eps, etc., (ie, but certainly NOT *.jpg, *.tif, *.png, etc.).

In addition to the sharpness being preserved at any size scale, the second benefit to working this way is that you will be working on files of megabyte size or less, not tens or hundreds of GB. Even modest sized computers won't be taxed.

(BTW, note that some vector programs, particularly those designed for page layout (eg, InDesign), have limitations on the maximum real-world size you can make the file, but this is not really a limitation since you can always work at a smaller scale, eg, 1 inch = 1 foot, 1 mm = 1 cm, etc., and the resultant file will still produce ultra sharp edges even after the printer's RIP scales the file back up to full size for printing. )

If there are no photos or other bitmaps in the final product, your work is essentially done at this point.
--------

However, if the final product does include a photo or other bitmaps, the first thing to do ask the art director whether, by some chance, the images might be able to be converted to vectors. This generally imparts a drawing or cartoon-like feel to them, but in some cases, (eg, Lichtenstein-like images) this is entirely acceptable, maybe even preferable. If so, you are in luck. Such conversions can usually be done quickly using AI's "Image Trace" followed by a little manual touch-up work, and your file still stays relatively small, and able to be scaled to any size without problem.

However, if one or more photos absolutely must be included, this can be done quite simply by placing a good quality, reasonably high resolution version of it (say, at least 4000 px in the long dimension) into the AI or PDF file, essentially without regard to the very low ppi this will become when scaled up to billboard size. This is because:

(a) billboards almost never are viewed up close; and,

(b) even if a viewer is able to stand a few feet away from something this large, they have no expectations of being able to see the bacteria crawling around every pore of the model, LOL. As long as the image isn't obviously pixelated and the graphics are sharp, they'll be happy, even if the photo is a bit soft when standing right next to it.

If you want to get into the issue of what final dpi (for bitmaps) are acceptable at what distance, just Google {"rule of 240" billboard}, or go to the websites of companies that produce billboards for a living, e.g., https://www.cbsoutdoor.com/outdoor101/Documents/OAAA_OOH Print Production Specifications.pdf :

"* Outdoor (billboards, Ecoposters, etc.): a
minimum effective resolution of 18-25 ppi at
full printed size.

* Transit (bus interiors and exteriors, subway
posters, commuter rail media): a minimum
effective resolution of 80-100 ppi at full printed
size."


HTH,

Tom M

PS - FWIW, just a month ago, I helped design (and have produced) a 60 foot (wide) by 3 foot (high) timeline / history of an organization. It was going to be viewed by attendees at a scientific conference, almost always standing at least 2 or 3 feet away from it. This allowed me to go down to 100 ppi for the images. For ease of transport and mounting, it was broken down into 10 sections, each 6 feet wide, and each representing 5 years of the organization's history.

Because there were a large number of photos, and only simple text, text efx, and other hard-edged graphics, once the text content was agreed upon, I knocked it out in about 3 days using ... guess what ... of all things ... ... ... Yeah, Photoshop to prepare the photos, but then dumped them all into ... of all things ... Powerpoint! A dumb business graphics program like this was all that was needed for this task. It produced great looking output, small file sizes, and was much faster to use (since no complicated graphics were involved) than using one of the vector programs I mentioned earlier. I could have used any of them, but overkill serves no purpose when there are deadlines and budget constraints. You use the best tool for the job and move on.
 

ALB68

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I won't reply to Tom's post with the quote. However I do agree and I personally would never undertaken this project as a bitmap. However, the OP did demonstrate that he had already begun with this. Sure, he should have been doing this as a vector, but he wasn't. He did demonstrate knowledge of Photoshop and non whatever with a vector program such as Ai. He had plenty of hardware resources and was wanting to go forward despite the difficulties he was encountering. Being a former sign maker myself, I felt a need to try and help him out of his present situation and not suggest what he was doing was totally wrong and he should go an start all over again and do this as a vector project albeit would have been best had he had the ability. At last report he had pulled this off much to my amazement. So, kudos to him and his great effort to complete his work.
 

imthebest

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Well almost finished. Agree with you guys if I had a copy of illustrator of £350 it would have been ideal but I guess you just have to work with what you have. I will post the results when I'm complexity finished.

I took into account the issues with using images and placed a Gaussian blur over the entire image covered with a 20% opacity white layer to give s frosted effect, then placed the company logo over the whole image.

I then used a layer mask over the main image layer that was stitched together to remove some of the frosted blur from the 2 sides so the fading blends in.

This effect was added to try and work with blur that printing from a PS document will add rather than trying to work against it.

I have been processing banners all weekend for 1 job, everything from 95cm x 95cm right up to 900cm x 230cm and both the hardware and software have passed all expectations!!!


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ALB68

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Do you have PS 2014 or is Version 14 a lower version? Is 14 just the first version of CC? V7 +CS-CS6 would be 13 +1 =14. Sorry for my ignorance. My point is that if you have 2014 then you must be a member of Creative Cloud. They have a membership for $19.95 a month that gets you Photoshop and Ai.
 

imthebest

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Do you have PS 2014 or is Version 14 a lower version? Is 14 just the first version of CC? V7 +CS-CS6 would be 13 +1 =14. Sorry for my ignorance. My point is that if you have 2014 then you must be a member of Creative Cloud. They have a membership for $19.95 a month that gets you Photoshop and Ai.

I'm not sure, my copy just says PS 14.0 x64

I'm in the UK but if I could get PS and AI for £20/$20 it would be worth it
 

Tom Mann

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@OP - That's great that you have almost completed the project! I bet you are glad it's over and I hope you are getting paid well for your work on it, especially considering what the sponsors of this work are likely going to have to pay to have a banner that is 30 feet by 7.5 feet printed. Yikes. I would love to see it (at low resolution, LOL) when it's done.

Also, in case you aren't aware of this, Adobe has gone over to a subscription payment model to access their programs. If something like this ever comes up again, renting AI for a month would have only cost $30 USD - just pass it on to your customers:
https://creative.adobe.com/plans?sd...cloud&ef_id=VAE3xAAABRJvjayW:20141116190006:s

@Larry (ALB) - That was a great post and very good reasons you gave to continue to try to help the OP with the PS approach. I was taking a larger view of the problem, both for the OP's sake, and for future readers of this thread, explaining an approach in which the total file size would likely not have been more than several times the size of a single photo of reasonable quality, ie, several pix embedded into an AI, InDesign, or similar file - tens or low hundreds of MB, not many GB.

Cheers,

Tom M

PS - I see that I was writing about the CC subscription model at the same time as you were, Larry. Tnx.
 
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imthebest

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@OP - That's great that you have almost completed the project! I bet you are glad it's over and I hope you are getting paid well for your work on it, especially considering what the sponsors of this work are likely going to have to pay to have a banner that is 30 feet by 7.5 feet printed. Yikes. I would love to see it (at low resolution, LOL) when it's done.

Also, in case you aren't aware of this, Adobe has gone over to a subscription payment model to access their programs. If something like this ever comes up again, renting AI for a month would have only cost $30 USD - just pass it on to your customers:
https://creative.adobe.com/plans?sd...cloud&ef_id=VAE3xAAABRJvjayW:20141116190006:s

@Larry (ALB) - That was a great post and very good reasons you gave to continue to try to help the OP with the PS approach. I was taking a larger view of the problem, both for the OP's sake, and for future readers of this thread, explaining an approach in which the total file size would likely not have been more than several times the size of a single photo of reasonable quality, ie, several pix embedded into an AI, InDesign, or similar file - tens or low hundreds of MB, not many GB.

Cheers,

Tom M

PS - I see that I was writing about the CC subscription model at the same time as you were, Larry. Tnx.

I work for the company already so I guess it's part of salary :)

I'm not sure how, but the banner is actually costing less than $200 to print in Poland, Although they are also doing about 10 other banners so I'm guessing the total bill with be a lot higher than that.
 

ALB68

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Yes Tom, an excellent post on your behalf. Thanks for taking the time to do it.

imthebest, if you want to post some of this project (as low res screenshots) would be interested to see your work.
The Creative Cloud thing is a good deal in my opinion..check it out. I have the whole thing for like $50 US access to everything they sell plus a good many extras, storage etc.
 

imthebest

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Probably going to remake it again as I think I have found a better way of producing the banner with the clients needs without having to blur everything and include more relevant content but here's what I ended up with at the weekend 6a8afeefe8c29024ac65740b5038088f.jpg


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