Expert: Kevin Stohlmeyer - 6/6/2010

Question
Hi Kevin,

I use a 3rd party plug-in called FilteriT 4.3 http://www.cvalley.com/products/filterit4/index.html for Illustrator CS4. When I use the Craft Tool and add drop shadows, I get the message: "The filter cannot complete because there isn't enough memory (RAM) available." I've even received this message when I've only drawn one line with the pen tool and then used the Craft Tool, created a drop shadow and then decided to export the file as either a .png file or .jpeg file.

I note your message to a reader whereby you mention he didn't have enough memory. I wonder if I'm in this position?

However, to let you know, I had this computer built SPECIFICALLY for graphics. It has a Core i7 950 CPU on an X58 motherboard with 2 x HD4890 graphics cards connected via Crossfire and running with 12GB of DDR3 1600MHz Corsair RAM on 2 x 1TB hard drives, on Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit. I was running with only 3GB of DDR3 1300MHz Corsair RAM while I was using Windows XP, and the memory problem has greatly improved, but I STILL seem to run into a bottleneck with RAM.

I've also written to CValley (producers of FilteriT) to ask them how to prevent the Craft Tool from creating so many layers, but haven't heard from them yet. The file sizes have been anywhere from between 20-40MB, which are quite large for Illustrator files!!

Another plugin I like to use is called Andrew's Vector Plugins, and one of their products is called "Contour", which can create a couple of thousand additional layers within a file, which has resulted in file sizes that have blown out to 76MB!! (That's why I had this computer tricked up as much as possible, but it's proving very costly!)

I've also tried flattening the files, and also looking to delete as many layers as possible, but haven't worked out yet how to take care of this memory problem.

Just wondering if you have any suggestions that might help me avoid these bottlenecks?

Thanking you in advance,

Casey Herman
Melbourne, Australia

Answer
Hi Casey,

12 gigs of RAM, if available should be more than enough. However, I am not familiar with these plug INS. But they do sound like the culprit. 20-40 mb for an Illustrator file is considered large, and 75 is nuts! Do these plug ins do something spectacular that this kind of bloat is needed? I would pursue inquiries with the developers or look for help on their sites. I wish I had an answer but these third party plug ins are best answered by someone who has used them more.


Good luck,

Kevin