Large 9gig tif image opening as solid white

[pbDudley]

Hello. I have a large around 9 gig tif image that when I try to open it in photoshop it only displays as white where the pixel values are. The same image will open in IrfanView(free image viewer) fine. I saw some posts about changing settings in preferences but none of the examples via adobe forum worked for me.
Does anyone know why this would be occurring? It’s not really showing histogram data. Is it a size issue? I have a newer version but I’m not by my work computer to check the actual version right now. I want to say it’s a 2020 version.

 

[thebestcpu]

Last I heard PS could read BigTIFF (greater than 4GB) yet can only write 4GB TIFF files.

Any chance you could provide a file sharing link to your large 9 GB file to be examined?
John Wheeler

 

[pbDudley]

Last I heard PS could read BigTIFF (greater than 4GB) yet can only write 4GB TIFF files.

Any chance you could provide a file sharing link to your large 9 GB file to be examined?
John Wheeler

I can give the site that I downloaded it from as its probably too large to attach it here:

Northern GoM Deepwater Bathymetry Grid from 3D Seismic | Bureau of Ocean Energy Management

www.boem.gov

In this site they have a tab for downloadable files:
And I am trying this one:

BOEM_Bathymetry_East_ft_tiff.zip File name: BOEMbathyE_ft.tif which I see is 6.9 Gigs

I have photoshop version 23.5.5 which I believe is a newer version at least. I saw some other posts about a white background and most state to change some settings in preferences which I tried but it didn't work. Now it does take a little while to open in photoshop which makes me think its got all of the correct pixel values loaded

And I have a fairly powerful workstation computer that can handle other much larger data via another program
So most of the work that I do in photoshop are on small tif, jpeg images that I edit and label features

Thank you for any help

 

[thebestcpu]

Hii @pbDudley
Probably cannot be of too much help.
When unzipping the file there are a bunch of other ancilliary files that I believe are needed and not just the large TIFF file



I was able to read in the large TIFF file yet it loaded as a 32 bit depth Grayscale image:



So my conclusion is that TIFF format by itself is not the image file which you seek.

I suspect that you would need a program that can read all of the appropirate files and use and appropropriate export to TIFF option to get what you want.

I don't know for sure yet this is how far I could take it.
John Wheeler

 

[pbDudley]

Hii @pbDudley
Probably cannot be of too much help.
When unzipping the file there are a bunch of other ancilliary files that I believe are needed and not just the large TIFF file

View attachment 139678

I was able to read in the large TIFF file yet it loaded as a 32 bit depth Grayscale image:

View attachment 139679

So my conclusion is that TIFF format by itself is not the image file which you seek.

I suspect that you would need a program that can read all of the appropirate files and use and appropropriate export to TIFF option to get what you want.

I don't know for sure yet this is how far I could take it.
John Wheeler

Ok thank you. Yes it is a georeferenced image meaning that it opens in a spatial coordinate location. In this case the Gulf of Mexico seafloor. I guess I assumed that since it opened fine in Irfan view that it would work in Photoshop.
So my next test was to save the file out of Irfanview to a .bmp. But when I try to open this in Photoshop I get an error:
photoshop Could not open image because the tif-format module cannot parse the file

I know I can crop the image to a smaller size and get it to open in photoshop. I can research some methods to see how to save it. The program used to georeference the image(adding the other files that you see) only allows an image to be saved with this georeferencing. But I think you are right that it has something to do with the other files. Im not sure about the parsing error, one google answer states to open the image in paint and save as but this didnt work.
Thank you for helping me with this issue. I really only need a cropped portion of this image and IrfanView lets me do this then it opened in photshop so that would be my work around if I do not find another way

 

[JeffK]

I tried opening directly in Photoshop and saw the same image as @thebestcpu
Like John, I suspect there is a missing piece of software - there is a reference to ArcGIS so I wonder if that dominates the image...

 

[pbDudley]

I tried opening directly in Photoshop and saw the same image as @thebestcpu
Like John, I suspect there is a missing piece of software - there is a reference to ArcGIS so I wonder if that dominates the image...

Yes it is a ArcGIS image but IrfanView can open it. But I did just google IrfanView and ArcGIS and it seems that IrfanView can handle these types. The ArcGIS image probably has overview files with it to help it display quickly.
So I believe you too are right is that it’s not just a tiff thar photoshop can open but I would have to try and save it without all of that info. I believe there is a way. If not I know I can crop it in IrfanView and it worked in photoshop for me last week. But I think I can now look into how I can save it without the ArcGIS portion. Along time ago I worked at a place where we would make edits to these sorts of images and I believe we did have to save it a certain way then recreate those ArcGIS files.
So it’s not really a photoshop problem I assume.
If I find a way to do this I can post the answer. It might not be that common but people who use photoshop for editing those types of images might find it useful
Thanks

 

[pbDudley]

Perhaps this is the answer and I can try this tomorrow:

Georeferenced Raster in Adobe Photoshop (NoDataValue)

Dear All, I have a georerenced raster (TIFF, unsigned integer, NoDataValue 255, 255, 255) that I want to process in Adobe Photoshop. It opens as black and white in Photoshop. Based on documentation and forums, the problem is that ESRI uses NoDataValues. I tried to remove NoDataValues from the...

community.esri.com

But now I’m getting farther away from this being a photoshop issue

 

[pbDudley]

Ok, somehow I got it in. I tried saving it differntly out of the software used to create it and I got it in. The image is originally 32 bit and I saved it out as 8 bit, thats how it works now

But the layer is named index and its locked. Normally I right click the layer, and say duplicate, and I can create a new layer
This one duplicate layer is greyed out.
Im not 100% sure I even need it unlocked to do edits, cropping and manipulating another image with it. But why would this be greyed out?
Im adding this after the fact but it wont let me do anything when its locked so I do need it unlocked

 

[thebestcpu]

You may want to check Image > Mode Modes such as Indexed do not allow layers to be added and would need to be changed to a mode where Layers are allowed.
Best if you provide screenshots to help explain what is going on. Keep in mind you can see it right in front of you yet reading text on the far end is similar to having a blindfold on
Just a suggestion
John Wheeler