My File Is Growing; I’m Confused!

A
Posted By
Amaris
Sep 7, 2008
Views
659
Replies
4
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Closed
First of all, I know almost nothing about Photoshop; I’m working with the 30-day download because I’m trying to make a postcard for vistaprint.com and they recommend Photoshop. I’ve downloaded their template, which is 1.33 MB, and the picture I’m trying to put into it is 2.60 MB. Yet, when I put them together, the result is 17.1 MB — and that’s with me deleting one of their layers! I’m obviously doing something VERY wrong. I need to get the file under 8 MB for vista to accept it. Can someone help me?

Here is the process I’m following, which intuitively seems okay to me … First, I am opening both files. I am selecting all, then copying the file that I want to put into the template. Then, I go to the template and paste my pictures into a layer that was already there called "Your Design". That’s all I do. Then I close the template file, using "Save As" so I can rename it. I keep the maximize compatibility on. When I check the size of the new file, it’s 17.5 MB!

What did I do wrong? Why is the new file so much bigger than the two files put together? Even with "maximize compatibility" turned off, it’s 9.10 and I need to get it, at 300 dpi, to less than 8 MB.

Can someone please help me???

Thanks in advance!
Cindy
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MR
Mike Russell
Sep 7, 2008
On Sat, 6 Sep 2008 22:28:46 -0700 (PDT), Amaris wrote:
….
What did I do wrong? Why is the new file so much bigger than the two files put together? Even with "maximize compatibility" turned off, it’s 9.10 and I need to get it, at 300 dpi, to less than 8 MB.
….
Do a "Flatten Image" command, and save your file under a different name as a jpg and you’ll be golden. Base any future changes on your pre-flattened copy of the file.
—
Mike Russell – http://www.curvemeister.com
T
Tacit
Sep 9, 2008
In article
,
Amaris wrote:

First of all, I know almost nothing about Photoshop; I’m working with the 30-day download because I’m trying to make a postcard for vistaprint.com and they recommend Photoshop. I’ve downloaded their template, which is 1.33 MB, and the picture I’m trying to put into it is 2.60 MB. Yet, when I put them together, the result is 17.1 MB — and that’s with me deleting one of their layers! I’m obviously doing something VERY wrong. I need to get the file under 8 MB for vista to accept it. Can someone help me?

You did nothing wrong. Everything is as it should be.

Let me guess: You say the picture you are trying to put in, the one that is 2.6 MB, is a JPEG, right?

JPEG files are compressed. They are made smaller on disk when they are saved. If you open a JPEG file that is 2.6 MB and ten look at the size of the file in Photoshop, it will be way, way bigger than 2.6 MB.

Save your picture. Then us the Save As command. Save a new copy as a JPEG. The file will be smaller.

Be aware that JPEG makes files smaller by deliberately degrading the quality. Keep the .psd file handy; if you want to make changes, go back to it. Do not change a JPEG, save it, open it, make more changes, and save it again. Each time you do, the quality will become worse.

—
Photography, kink, polyamory, shareware, and more: all at http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html
TN
Tom Nelson
Sep 9, 2008
In article
,
Amaris wrote:

First of all, I know almost nothing about Photoshop; I’m working with the 30-day download because I’m trying to make a postcard for vistaprint.com and they recommend Photoshop. I’ve downloaded their template, which is 1.33 MB, and the picture I’m trying to put into it is 2.60 MB. Yet, when I put them together, the result is 17.1 MB — and that’s with me deleting one of their layers! I’m obviously doing something VERY wrong. I need to get the file under 8 MB for vista to accept it. Can someone help me?

Here is the process I’m following, which intuitively seems okay to me … First, I am opening both files. I am selecting all, then copying the file that I want to put into the template. Then, I go to the template and paste my pictures into a layer that was already there called "Your Design". That’s all I do. Then I close the template file, using "Save As" so I can rename it. I keep the maximize compatibility on. When I check the size of the new file, it’s 17.5 MB!
What did I do wrong? Why is the new file so much bigger than the two files put together? Even with "maximize compatibility" turned off, it’s 9.10 and I need to get it, at 300 dpi, to less than 8 MB.
Can someone please help me???

Thanks in advance!
Cindy

Incidentally, you can safely turn off "Maximize Compatibility." This saves a separate flattened version of the image inside the layered file. Such images can be opened by Photoshop versions below PS 4 (when layers were first introduced, in the mid-1990s).

Tom Nelson
Tom Nelson Photography
T
Tacit
Sep 9, 2008
In article <090920081640114725%>,
Tom Nelson wrote:

Incidentally, you can safely turn off "Maximize Compatibility." This saves a separate flattened version of the image inside the layered file. Such images can be opened by Photoshop versions below PS 4 (when layers were first introduced, in the mid-1990s).

As a side note, layers debuted in Photoshop 3.

—
Photography, kink, polyamory, shareware, and more: all at http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html

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