: Techniques for very large image I need to do a poster, 8m width by 3.7m height, consisting of photographic elements that will be seen from varying distances. I've talked to the printer and

@Sims5801359

I don't want to make any assumptions (this could be a fine art photo piece in a gallery for all I know) but I would be surprised if you really want or need to print at 150ppi for a piece this size.

As you say, your image would need to be about 1 billion pixels (1000 megapixels). Is your source imagery going to provide this? Are your audience going to notice the difference? You say "consisting of photographic elements" - only?

Also, there's no point in upgrading your PC and providing a GB-sized file if the printer's hardware can't handle it. I would make absolutely sure of this before going to these extremes.

If the main thrust of the question is "how do the pros do it?" then the answers to What resolution should a large format artwork for print be? should cover it.

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@Eichhorn212

As others have noted, buying more RAM is rarely a bad idea when working with images, particularly very large ones.

However, another way to approach the problem would be to design your poster in a vector graphics editor such as Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape. As vector graphics are scalable, they can be rendered at any size or resolution without suffering from pixelization. Also, the amount of memory needed to store and manipulate them depends only on the number and complexity of objects present, not on their size.

Obviously, if your poster includes "photographic elements", then those will have to be embedded as raster images. However, you won't need to scale the photographs above their natural resolution, since the vector graphics renderer will do that for you. (In some cases, you may want to scale the photos up by a relatively small factor, e.g. 2x or 3x, ideally using a high-quality rescaler like PhotoZoom Pro or Perfect Resize, but this depends a lot on how high their quality is to begin with — images with low resolution but high sharpness generally benefit most, while those with a high nominal resolution but low sharpness usually won't.)

It's also possible to trace raster images into vector outlines, but this tends to only work well for "cartoon-like" images that already consist of relatively clean and simple lines. For photos, you're generally better off sticking with raster images and only embedding them into a vector drawing.

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@Kristi927

If you go to Edit > Preferences > Performances you can see how much RAM you have (or at least how much PS recognises) and set the amount of max MB's of RAM you want, increasing this might help a little.

If that doesn't do the trick for you: it's two options or a combo of both:


Get a computer with more RAM. For large files, PS requires a large amount of RAM.
Instead of RAM, a better videocard could just be the solution. PS also requires a decent videocard, and even more important, a fair amount of video RAM. This is the memory needed for the processing your videocard does.


RAM and videocard RAM are not 'interchangable' and do not compensate each other in any way. This is important to know! You need both.

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@Murray976

I'm not really certain what the question is... How to work with large files?

You need as much RAM as a machine can hold and you can afford. 3GB is scraping the bottom anymore. Especially for large files.

A 64Bit operating system and Photoshop running under 64bit helps.

A separate drive (not partition) to use for scratch space will also help speeds.

A good video card with 1GB of RAM on it. Photoshop utilizes the GPU a great deal anymore.

"Professionals" tend to immediately add RAM to almost every system. An adequate minimum would be about 4GB anymore, but even that can quickly be chewed up.

Faster processors and multiple processors also help quite a bit. Generally professionals aren't buying the low-end model of any computer. If anything, more professionals buy the high-end models, especially if they are working on print, flexo, or media other than, or in addition to, web and screen delivery.

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@Si6392903

Yeah you need to get more RAM on your computer. Its pretty cheap these days and its one of the easiest parts of your computer to upgrade in my opinion. Also if you're making a professional print, you're PPI should be 300 or even higher for very high quality prints.

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@Speyer780

Get more RAM.

Seriously. I had the same problem on a machine with only 2GB of RAM and it was a wonder I ever got anything accomplished.

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