Expert: Scott Valentine - 11/26/2007

Question
Hi Scott,

I am working in Adobe Photoshop 7 and I am have a photograph that needs to be 8 feet wide and 11 feet long although when I go into image size and place the 96 inches in width and the 131 inches in height. Photoshop does not allow me to go past 100 inches.What can be the problem?

Another question is I can not save an image over 2G when. The image is 300 resolution but I had to bring it down to 280 because it would not save over 2G. What could be the problem?

Answer
Hi Sera - this is a known limitation in Photoshop. It has an upper boundary of 30,000 x 30,000 pixels, and a file size limit of 2G.

To print larger sizes, you will need to use a RIP (Raster Image Processor) that can handle such file sizes, or you will need to perform some trickery on the file itself.

As you found, one solution is to lower the PPI (Pixels Per Inch) of your file, which is a tradeoff. However, 280 vs 300 shouldn't make a noticeable difference. Also, keep in mind that viewing distance for such a large image allows you to have larger printed dots - the viewer stands back enough to compensate for the lower effective resolution.

But if you must have the high resolution, your alternative is to break apart the image into separate files and again have a RIP stitch them back together. This has the advantage of increasing performance while you work, but if you make global changes to one document, you must repeat those changes for all document pieces. For example, if you apply a sharpening pass, you have to do the same thing for every element so they look the same.

For more detail, please contact your printer - they will be able to give you specific instructions for their equipment, and may be able to offer more solutions, including software that manages huge documents.

If you have further questions, or would like some clarification, please do not hesitate to ask!

-Scott