Photoshop limitations

JB
Posted By
jannes_bolten
Jun 1, 2005
Views
576
Replies
24
Status
Closed
I am having problems working with a 2.8GB, 18951×18951 pixel image. Photoshop won’t open the thing, saying that it is not in the right file format. The image is a 16-bit TIF file – nothing Photoshop can’t handle I reckon. So, I thought I ran into the file size limitation of Photoshop. I always thought this limit to be 2GB on a 32-bit system.

However, Bruce Fraser writes on < http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/20248.html?cprose=d aily> about PSCS that the size limits have been changed: 300,000 pixels and files of up to 4GB were supposedly supported on 32-bit systems. All the same, my file won’t open.

Can somebody tell me what the actual limit on file size of Photoshop is?

My system is Win XP Home SP2, Pentium 4 Dothan mobile processor 1.5 GHz, 1GB of RAM, with Photoshop set to 70% of RAM.

And secondly, does the file size limitation (whether it be 2GB or 4GB) also apply on a 64-bit system?

Thanks!

MacBook Pro 16” Mockups 🔥

– in 4 materials (clay versions included)

– 12 scenes

– 48 MacBook Pro 16″ mockups

– 6000 x 4500 px

BL
Bob Levine
Jun 1, 2005
There is a new file format–PSB–for files larger than 2GB. AFAIK, that’s the only file format the PS can can open with files that large.

Bob
DM
dave_milbut
Jun 1, 2005
TIF can too i believe bob… strating in PS CS.
PC
Pierre_Courtejoie
Jun 1, 2005
Jannes, what version of Photoshop are you running?
Did you activate large files in the preferences?
BL
Bob Levine
Jun 1, 2005
I’ll take your word for it. The idea of working on a file that large is so foreign to me that I never really spent much time looking into it.

Bob
JB
jannes_bolten
Jun 1, 2005
Great, thanks all of you for your input so fast.

I am working with Photoshop CS2. Unfortunately it didn’t like this particular TIF – but I didn’t know a large file option exists in preferences. Will check that out first.

Will also give the PSD format a try – if I’m not mistaken, the software that created this file is capable of delivering PSD files as well as TIFs. I am assuming that PSD is a 16-bit format and will convert losslessly into 16-bit TIFs. Is that true?

Jannes
BL
Bob Levine
Jun 1, 2005
PSD still has a 2 gig limit.

Bob
JB
jannes_bolten
Jun 1, 2005
Now I am confused. Didn’t you mean to say that PSD can handle files over 2 Gig in your first message?
BL
Bob Levine
Jun 1, 2005
No. I said PSB.

Bob
RB
Robert_Barnett
Jun 1, 2005
PSD is the standard format. PSB I think it is was added in Photoshop CS to handle large files. Unless the other program you speak of can save your large image as a PSB image Photoshop won’t be able to open it, because of the size limit in PSD.

Personally, I think Adobe made kind of a mess of things when they added a separate format for large images instead just updating the PSD format to handle it all. I would have been a lot less messy especially since I don’t know of any other program that is capable of creating PSB images. I am not sure how Adobe intended people to get images in to this format if you can’t load them from say a .TIF. Maybe they only thought about images of that size created 100% inside of Photoshop using File > New. Either way it was a bit short sighted and a good example of another half-a**ed feature.

Robert
CC
Chris_Cox
Jun 1, 2005
Or an example of trying to avoid larger problems with other applications that crash because they don’t expect PSD files over 2 Gig, or PSD files with newer version numbers, or half a dozen other things you haven’t even tried to think about.
JB
jannes_bolten
Jun 2, 2005
The current version of the software I use unfortunately does not ouput PSB files, only PSD. However, the help document of PSCS2 seems to state quite unequivocally that 4GB TIFS are supported. Unfortunately I can’t get this to work on my system. Can it be that the Alpha Channel of my file causes the problem? The "large file" option in preferences was enabled, but it appears that this only enables the PSB format in PS. It is of no consequence for TIFs. Am currently working on finding a way to reduce the size of the file to < 2GB from the command line, but there are many similar problems here.

If anyone has experience with > 2GB TIFS in Photoshop, I am keen on hearing other possible solutions for my large TIF problem though.

Thanks so far.

Jannes
CC
Chris_Cox
Jun 3, 2005
Where does the TIFF fail?

If the TIFF is written correctly, Photoshop will read it. And Photoshop writes TIFF correctly when it’s between 2 and 4 Gig. But most applications will not read or write TIFF over 2 Gig.
JB
jannes_bolten
Jun 3, 2005
It fails when I click "open". Immediately the error message is returned ("not the right format"). So probably something went wrong when the file was written? That is not impossible. Will try to find that out. Thanks.

Jannes
H
HibbardSmith
Jun 3, 2005
Are you using FAT32 or NTFS file systems? FAT32 still has a file size limitations that NTFS doesn’t.

-Smitty
CC
Chris_Cox
Jun 3, 2005
Worst case, email me and get mailing instructions to send me a DVD with the image…
D
deebs
Jun 3, 2005
Now that is what I call commitment to a product
B
Boskey
Jun 4, 2005
wrote in message
Are you using FAT32 or NTFS file systems? FAT32 still has a file size limitations that NTFS doesn’t.

-Smitty

This shouldn’t be a problem as max file size for FAT32 is approx 4GB.
JB
jannes_bolten
Jun 4, 2005
I am using NTFS – which allows for larger files, but has annoying problems of its own, sometimes making me lament the choice for NTFS when I installed my system…

Thanks for that DVD option Chris. Will send you an e-mail.
JC
jim_collum
Oct 25, 2005
some additional information on the last post

The same tif file with layers (and a file size of 2.6G), will open with no problems in CS1, with all layers intact. With CS2, it gets flattened upon reading

any information on this?

jim
CC
Chris_Cox
Oct 27, 2005
Yes, that sounds similar to a known bug in CS2.

Please contact Adobe technical support and let them know that you are seeing this problem (so they know how MANY people have seen it).
JC
jim_collum
Oct 27, 2005
thanks! i’ll do that. I work with Betterlight scan back files, so they get very large, very quick. i’d imagine anyone who works with files that large (drum scans..) will see the same thing

jim
CC
Chris_Cox
Oct 27, 2005
Actually, if it’s the same bug, then it only affects TIFF files over 2 Gig (but less than 4) with part of the layer data located past the 2 Gig boundary.
CN
Cybernetic Nomad
Oct 27, 2005
Chris,

May I assume that a workaroudn to this problem is to save your file as a PSD (or PSB) file?
CC
Chris_Cox
Oct 27, 2005
Save as PSB should work.

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