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Artworkers - just for fun...

D

dazzer21

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 18, 2005
473
4
...how big was the largest file you've ever worked on/created? I've just downloaded some files that a client produced for me to manufacture various artworks using. 10 photographic images, all uncompressed CMYK TIF files with a collective ZIPPED filesize of... 42GB! On average, around 5GB each. And the best of all... Saved to a size of 10' x 6' at 300dpi!!! (that's feet, not inches!)> I'm GOBSMACKED!!! :eek: Anyone top that? :D
 
I just finished a photo with about a dozen layers that topped 10GB. It was for a street banner proposal, about 2ft by 5ft. Each layer had a full sized image that I was incorporating. To be fair, in hindsight I probably didn't have to work on it in the Prophoto colour space at 16bits/channel. :) That was just habit.
 
These are flattened images - no layers! Give a kid a maxed-out Mac Pro and quite literally, anything is possible...
 
dazzer21 said:
... Saved to a size of 10' x 6' at 300dpi!!!
Click to expand...

What was the final output size of the images?

I started working in prepress over 20 years ago. Keeping files sizes down is a matter of habit after years of practice.

Kids these days ... just don't know any better.
 
citizenzen said:
I started working in prepress over 20 years ago. Keeping files sizes down is a matter of habit after years of practice.
Click to expand...
And depending on what the finished product was - it most likely wasn't printed at 300 dpi by the printer anyway. So someone spent excess time to push around an overly large file that's just going to be cut in half at press anyway.
 
Anyone working above 200-300 megs is wasting everyones time....except in the very rare exception of closeup large panels (exhibition floor) that are viewed close up. Most getty shot are only 90mb...so anything above that is a bonus. 96 sheet posters are made from A3 films and blown up. 4-6 sheets can touch 200mbs but anything above that then get a steer from the printers as it will be unproductive working on a layered PS file thats bigger than that.
 
citizenzen said:
What was the final output size of the images?
Click to expand...

One of the files was nearly 6GB! One of the smaller files that came over (2.5GB) was actually placed in a mailer template in InDesign with an output res of around 8000dpi! I couldn't even save them down as jpegs as they stood! They are now at a more than reasonable A2 size and are weighing in at sizes 40-50 times smaller! Large images are one thing, placing them in small-format InDesign files takes ineptitude to a whole new level...

The largest these will be used on are 48-sheet posters, res about 25-40dpi!!!
 
And...

...the important part I missed off - these are from a top-flight London agency's studio!
 
The biggest series of files I've worked on was a full high resolution map of the Earth @ 150m resolution, all files with masking ended up around 96GB (each PSD file around the 10GB-18GB mark).

Each world tile quadrant was around 8096px X 8096px geoTIFF with attached alpha... It took nearly 4 days to process the raw imaged into the appropriate 3d format (image tiles 512X512 at multiple levels, alpha and attached lat/long).

All up I think that work mapping took 5 weeks to create, I started dreaming about maps I was so emerged with it.

And yes it was killing my Mac with 8GB RAM and paltry video card ;)
 
I work at my University planetarium and we work with 8Kx8K video that gets projected on the dome. 70MB per frame, 30fps, an average 30 minute show is about 3.8 TB. We've got about a petabyte of storage and some of the best computers (HP workstations) money can buy, as well as a 160 core render farm.

It might be full of students that do less than professional work, but it's funded by a multimillion dollar university, so we get really nice things :D
 
Ive worked in a few top flight London agencies and the ineptitude when it come to file size is Embarrassing. I had one guy populate a supermarket isle of coke cans ect in illustrator by duplicating 100mb eps 100's of times. The final image was going in the clients powerpoint...rofl.
 
R1PPER said:
Ive worked in a few top flight London agencies and the ineptitude when it come to file size is Embarrassing. I had one guy populate a supermarket isle of coke cans ect in illustrator by duplicating 100mb eps 100's of times. The final image was going in the clients powerpoint...rofl.
Click to expand...

Pretty much par for the course in my experience...
 
Photoshop meltdown

Had to work on one of our old Art Director's PS files a while ago. I clicked on "create layer", Photoshop reported "Could not complete your request as maximum amount of layers reached".

All of them untitled and in multiple nested folder groups. :)

----------

Kids don't learn these basic things anymore, same with setting up files for print (print? what's that?).
 
spacedcadet said:
Had to work on one of our old Art Director's PS files a while ago. I clicked on "create layer", Photoshop reported "Could not complete your request as maximum amount of layers reached".

All of them untitled and in multiple nested folder groups.
Click to expand...

Ha ha - I feel your pain...

The normal client response these days (and aren't they getting younger?*) is normally "It won't take you long - if you look around there's probably an ipad app for that effect anyway..."

* I think there's some sort of Logans Run thing going on - as soon as they get a bit of experience and knowledge they're sent to carousel and are immediately replaced by a 16 year old.
 
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