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How to work with giant Photoshop CS3 documents?

A

Aljovido

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 30, 2008
44
1
Brooklyn
I am attempting to work with very large Photoshop CS3 documents (120x160" @ 300dpi), and the program is almost non-responsive. These are large documents, so I naturally expect some lag, but it has become impossible to work with. However, I don't feel like I am the only person on earth who has to deal with a couple documents this large. I was hoping someone could give me some recommendations on how to set up my photoshop preferences to best work with large documents. I searched the internet for help, but only found confusing answers.

I have an 8-core 2008 Mac Pro 3.2 Ghz, 6GB of RAM. According to activity monitor, I do get some page outs (about 1GB after an hour or two of struggling), so I know adding more ram would help. But I am hopeful there are things I can change in preferences to have a more immediate effect.

Thanks,
Al
 
When you have posters or whatever your are working on that big, you don't need 300 dpi. 150 dpi should be more than enough for that size, no one is going to look at the poster up close.
 
Allocate some space to a Scratch Disk; preferably blank and of a decent capacity.
Convert your image to RGB if you haven't already.
Close the Navigator Palette and thumbnail previews in the Layers Palette.
Reduce your Saved History states to one.
 
Re: Giant PS documents

@heehe
150 ppi should be sufficient in most cases
(if creating giclee artwork, resolution may depend upon paper texture)

@Aljovido
If you can, get some more RAM sticks for that awesome machine of yours. It supports up to 32GB

@Southernboy
Scratch disk is crucial.

Bert Monroy routinely works on massive layered files by dissecting them into parts. After a large image is color balanced, it can be sliced into multiple squares for further manipulation with layers. These separate files can later be flattened and combined more easily.

Keep your clipboard memory clear. Don't copy the entire image and paste it. If you do find the need to copy and paste, keep a 1-pixel square document open with select all (marching ants) on it. After copying and pasting in your real file(s), click on the tiny document and copy the single pixel.
 
For billboards, banners, etc... that are to be viewed at longer than normal distances, scale the document down to 1/12 @ 900dpi.
ie: 10" x 13.33" @ 900dpi

BTW, use Illustrator for vector elements. (type, logos, etc...)
 
convert the main image to low res and save as something else. then just use it as placement only. when youre done, swap the larger image back into place...
 
Also thanks from me!

I've recently been having problems (albeit on an old G5) with some hi res poster images which will be looked at close up. I'll remember these tips for next time...

Much appreciated :)

/Doug
 
The biggest file I ever worked on was 6800 x 5285 pixels in RGB, i.e. A1 at 205 dpi approx.
The resolution of this, once printed out at maximum quality on my HP DesignJet, was just about okay. The subject was a very detailed rendering of a luxury sports coupé with transparent views into the innards of the car, so detail was required as it would be scrutinized closely.
Some differences though:
  1. There were over 150 layers, many of which had layer masks and/or effects, plus assorted adjustment layers.
  2. I was doing all the work on a PowerBook G4 Aluminium with 1 Gb of RAM.
The worst part was saving the file, which took about 30 minutes every time I did it, a couple of times it did actually refuse to save it, at which point I switched to using Large Document Format (.psb) which seemed to help.
The uncompressed size of the document was 1.53 Gb.
 
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