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How big is too big in Save to Web?

Nov 22, 2008 3:26 PM

Whenever I try to save one of my D300 NEF files for "Web & Devices" in Photoshop CS4, I get the following message:

"The image exceeds the size Save for Web & Devices was designed for. You may experience out of memory errors and slow performance. Are you sure you want to continue."

The files are 4288 x 2848 pixels, which to me does not look incredibly big.

One can bypass the error by first resizing the image, and then going to Save for Web & Devices, but it is an extra step, as I then have to undo the size change for the image.

This together with some large photo merge actions seems to have caused a PS crash. After the crash, I could not open PS and not even close it completely with Force Quit or logout. I had to restart.

Does anyone know what the exact "designed for" size is?

Does anyone know any work around to make PS accept my files as they are?

Macbook, 4G RAM. Mac OS X 10.5.5. Photoshop CS4.
848 Views   17 Replies   Latest reply: Allen Wicks, Nov 23, 2008 10:42 AM
 
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    1. Ed Hannigan,
    Nov 22, 2008 4:08 PM   in reply to (Magnus_Lewan)
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    I don't know the number, but that exceeds the size of most monitors. It is
    b Save for WEB,
    so that is kind of large. I take it Devices means cell phones, iPods, etc. small screens.

    I am surprised you didn't go ahead with the Save anyway. Probably would have gone fine.
     
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    2. Cindy-,
    Nov 22, 2008 4:49 PM   in reply to (Magnus_Lewan)
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    ...
     
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    3. Buko.,
    Nov 22, 2008 5:36 PM   in reply to (Magnus_Lewan)
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    Most images on the web are 200 to 500 pixels wide. They are small so they load fast in your browser or hand held device. If you want to save full size jpegs just save as.
     
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  • Ramón G Castañeda
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    4. Ramón G Castañeda,
    Nov 22, 2008 8:26 PM   in reply to (Magnus_Lewan)
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    >The files are 4288 x 2848 pixels, which to me does not look incredibly big.

    4288 x 2848 pixels is an absurdly large file for the web.
     
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    5. (Magnus_Lewan),
    Nov 22, 2008 11:42 PM   in reply to (Magnus_Lewan)
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    I perhaps did not make that point sufficiently clear, but I never intended to post a 4288 x 2848 image on the web. I want to get to the Save to Web dialogue, where I can resize it.

    The whole "problem" is that I do not want to resize the original image > Save to Web > Go back to the original image and un-resize the original back to its original size, before I go on working.

    Ed, no, the save does not go well. Once it blocked the Save to Web dialogue, so I had to kill PS. Once, it crashed PS so thoroughly that I had to restart.
     
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    6. (PShock),
    Nov 23, 2008 12:26 AM   in reply to (Magnus_Lewan)
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    You guys realize you
    b can
    resize in the SFW dialog, right? I use SFW with full size images (larger than 4288x2848) all the time. Resizing and converting to sRGB in a single SFW action is more efficient than doing it prior to bringing up SFW. Plus, I don't have to remember to undo the changes to the actual file. The features are there, why not use them?

    SFW performance in CS4 seems to an improvement over prior versions.

    Magnus -
    You should be able to safely ignore the warning for files of those dimensions, but with only 4 GB of RAM and the weak on-board video, you might run into trouble if the files are too complex with many layers, masks, style, etc. Does the crashing happen with flat files?

    One thing that might help is limit the SFW views to no more than two - the original and the one you want as the result. That will speed up redraw, which could be your issue.

    If the images are headed for the web, yes - you should resize them with the provided option but that's completely up to you.

    -phil
     
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    7. (Magnus_Lewan),
    Nov 23, 2008 12:53 AM   in reply to (Magnus_Lewan)
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    Phil, finally the voice of reason!

    I'm glad to learn that it works for you. That means that I'm not running into any hard brick wall anyhow. I wonder if there are any hidden cache files I could clean up.

    Yes, the problem appears even with flat files. Even if I open a simple JPEG of those dimensions and try the SFW menu, the message comes up.

    The Macbook is the latest 13" one with the following specs:

    * 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 3MB on-chip shared L2 cache running 1:1 with processor speed
    * 1066MHz frontside bus
    * NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics processor with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory3

    It is clearly far from a desktop Mac Pro, but as laptops go, it is not entry level.
     
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  • Ramón G Castañeda
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    8. Ramón G Castañeda,
    Nov 23, 2008 12:54 AM   in reply to (Magnus_Lewan)
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    If the file is too large, attempting to SFW returns a warning message that it exceeds the sizes (plural) for which SFW is intended, and that you'll run into quality and performance issues.

    That has so far been enough to make me resize the file first, then SFW.

    That being said, I have not seen the warning message when Saving For Web multilayered images derived from large RAW files.
     
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    9. (PShock),
    Nov 23, 2008 1:28 AM   in reply to (Magnus_Lewan)
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    > The Macbook is the latest 13" one with the following specs:

    Oh. Pardon my "weak video" comment, then. :)

    Not entry level indeed.

    My main system is a Mac Pro with 12 GB RAM and a Radeon 3870. However, I also have previous generation Macbook that I use for tethering on location. I don't have CS4 installed on it, but I just tried CS3's SFW with a 248 MB, 16 bit, 4900 x 3300 image - two layers and an adjustment layer.

    SFW complained as expected but had no problem opening the dialog, nor saving the resized file. Slower than my Mac Pro of course, but it worked fine.

    As long as the new versions of CS4 or the Macbook (or the combination), didn't introduce some new issue - I'd say something is wrong with your setup.

    What's your Open GL situation? Do you get advanced settings, or is it greyed out? If it's enabled, try disabling it. Failing that, I'd say try the usual for trouble shooting, starting with trashing PS prefs.

    -phil
     
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    10. (Magnus_Lewan),
    Nov 23, 2008 2:32 AM   in reply to (Magnus_Lewan)
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    Thanks, Phil,

    I think there now is a solution/explanation for everything.

    I trashed all the Adobe caches I could find in my home folders, and now it seems to be possible to use SFW without crashing.

    The explanation for the previous crashes may have something to do with some 1 Gigabyte files I had created with Photomerge. That may have corrupted something that did not want to go away, even though the merge itself went fine.

    The explanation for my surprise at the warning message is probably human. My memory must be wrong, and I had not used CS4 to Save any of previous NEF files for Web. I must have used it only on already cropped images, and used Aperture for other jpeg creation. The message is, in other words, not new. I checked on my old Powerbook G4 with CS2, and there is exactly the same message for that size jpegs. As CS2 does not support D300 NEF files, I would never have used it for that purpose on that machine anyhow.

    Open GL is active on the Macbook. I also played with some other performance and cache settings, including for Camera RAW, but that did not seem to have changed anything in this area.

    It would still be interesting to learn according to which criteria the message comes up, but I suppose there is some complicated internal algorithm to do that.
     
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    11. Ed Hannigan,
    Nov 23, 2008 5:05 AM   in reply to (Magnus_Lewan)
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    Okay. I dpm't have CS4 so I don't have all the features, but...if resizing and going back is an issue, a History Snapshot takes care of that no prob.
     
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  • Craster
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    12. Craster,
    Nov 23, 2008 7:51 AM   in reply to (Magnus_Lewan)
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    SFW is also a useful tool to quickly strip EXIF data.
     
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    13. (Magnus_Lewan),
    Nov 23, 2008 8:46 AM   in reply to (Magnus_Lewan)
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    And then to answer my own initial question, there seems to be some kind of absolute limit at 3374 x 2241 pixels. If I add as much as one single pixel, I will get the warning message about exceeding what was intended.

    This applies both to CS2 on my old PowerBook G4 and CS4 on my new Macbook.

    It also applies regardless of if the file is a jpeg, nef or psd with adjustment layers and embedded smart objects.

    I assume the limit is around 7 561 134 pixels, and that more or less elongated image shapes also work.
     
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    14. (Phos±four_dots),
    Nov 23, 2008 9:34 AM   in reply to (Magnus_Lewan)
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    > "Once it blocked the Save to Web dialogue, so I had to kill PS. Once, it crashed PS so thoroughly that I had to restart."

    That's not good at all, and should NOT happen in OS X. I'd want to ferret out how a crash/lock-up of Photoshop could require a full system reboot. (Which begs the question: Did you try simply doing a Log Out/Log In to get your OS back up and running?)
     
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    15. (Magnus_Lewan),
    Nov 23, 2008 9:56 AM   in reply to (Magnus_Lewan)
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    No one is perfect - not even Mac OS X. If a program manages to lock up central processes, a restart will be needed.

    In this case, the problem was that Photoshop refused to quit completely - even after several attempted Force Quits. I could go on working with other programs, but not Photoshop.

    Yes, I did logout and log back in. It took much longer than usual, of course, and when I got back in the visible process for PS was gone. However, it still refused to open. Hence the restart.
     
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    16. (Phos±four_dots),
    Nov 23, 2008 10:27 AM   in reply to (Magnus_Lewan)
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    > "No one is perfect - not even Mac OS X. If a program manages to lock up central processes, a restart will be needed."

    That first part of what you said there is indeed true.

    But a modern OS is designed to keep processes separated. An application crash SHOULD NOT require a complete shut-down and reboot of your system. Yes, the Log-Out/Log back in process might take awhile if you have a particularly bad application crunch, because the OS has detected that something went screwy and is checking to see that the user account is healthy enough to run, and may be fixing some things in the process.

    I've run all kinds of not-quite-polished software over the years since my adoption of OS X, and no matter how badly some of it performed nothing ever required me to reboot my system to restore operating health. Now, that's not to say I don't run system maintenance utilities which, after performing their routines, suggest or require a shutdown restart. I usually only do this if I've decided to delete the offending application from my system. (Sidebar: How diligent are you about maintaining the general health of your system through the regular practice of running preventative maintenance routines? Ramon may be along shortly to lay the boiler-plate on you about this :))

    Does Photoshop dig its hooks so deeply into the root level of the OS that it could cause the kind of problems you've had? I don't know for sure, but I'd guess that it's possible. And I'd suggest that, if wonky Photoshop behavior can be so bad that it requires the user to restart in order to regain operational health, then something is VERY wrong. And I'd go even further out on a limb to guess that this is a fault in Adobe's Photoshop coding, and not in Apple's OS coding.
     
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  • Allen Wicks
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    17. Allen Wicks,
    Nov 23, 2008 10:42 AM   in reply to (Magnus_Lewan)
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    >The Macbook is 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo... It is clearly far from a desktop Mac Pro, but as laptops go, it is not entry level.

    I agree that the MB's power is not an issue here. However make no mistake, a 2 GHz MB is
    i entry level
    among new Macs.
     
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