A problem I’ve encountered is that Photoshop CS3 cannot open an LZW TIF file generated in another program if it is above 2.1 GB (closed size). Any attempt to open with Photoshop results in the following message: "Could not complete your request because Photoshop does not recognize this type of file."
Is there a way to trick Photoshop into thinking that it is actually a Photoshop generated Tif? In other words, can it be converted to a Photoshop Tif without opening it?
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
Cheers,
Bart
Intel MacBook Pro 2.33 Core Duo, 3 GB Ram/OS X 10.4.11
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Some question hereL: a. When you save the tiff file with this software in a small size, could PS open it or not? b. Did the problem only happen with big size over 2.1G? c. Did the problem happen if you didn’t save the tiff with LZW? d. Any special things in this TIFF file?
The file size is 28,990 W x 43,200 H pixels RGB which would be 3.5 GB when open. It is 2.3 GB as a closed LZW Tif.
I know I can create such a file size in Photoshop, save as .tif and re-open, even with just 3 GB of Ram plus virtual memory. This is why I’m hoping that there is some kind of conversion program available to change the file to a Photoshop Tif -without having to open it first.
You could try Graphic Converter. Not guaranteeing it will work I have only been successful using this program to convert files on three occasions and have failed on about fur or five occasions.
My feeling in this case is it will not do anything for you. So if there is no demo you would have to buy it to find out.
I tried Graphic Converter. It cannot open tif files greater than 2 GB.
Ramon,
The original program doesn’t provide a feature to open the generated TIF file, regardless of size. It only generates an LZW TIF file. No, I’ve not used CS4 at this time.
I thought that without using a special format like psb for Photoshop, 2gb was the file size limit due to OS limitations. A 32-bit OS cannot address more memory for any file greater than 2gb. In other words, that generated file is useless.
I just created a 3.62GB file in Photoshop saved it as a LZW tif. closed it. and reopened the file. So it sounds like there is something else going on. are you saving over a network
The 4gb limit was something recent for tiff. Because of Photoshop’s use of virtual memory, it can be made to open and work with files over 2gb, but I still believe that in general, a 2gb file is a no-no for just about anything on a 32-bit OS. It could be that the more recent implementations in the tiff format to allow Photoshop to open a >2gb file is not being written by the OP’s software.
How do we know the file is under 4 GB uncompressed? 28,990 x 43,200 x 3 = 3,757,104,000, or 3.5 GB. Unless there’s an alpha channel, making the uncompressed file 4.7 GB. Unless it’s 16 BPP, making it 7 GB or more.
The OP said he could successfully open the file in Preview.app, included with OS X. Obviously, LarryGR was wondering whether, after opening the image in Preview.app, it might be possible to copy the image to the pasteboard, then switch to Photoshop, create a new document (size/dimensions taken from the pasteboard)), and paste into the new document.
If that doesn’t work, perhaps you could use Preview to split the image into 2 halves, and open them as two separate documents in Photoshop, copy one image half into the other, align them, then flatten and Save As… (I believe Preview.app has a crop tool you can use to crop the original and do a Save As "First half", revert to the original image again, crop the other half, then do a Save As "Second half).
Please do the following to see what I’m talking about:
1) Take a screenshot to create a quick example file (or use an existing file), and open the image in Preview.
2) In Preview, choose Edit > Copy. (This copies the current document’s contents to the pasteboard in various formats A quick look with the developer example app Clipboard Viewer shows the image has been copied as "public.tiff", "NeXT TIFF v4.0 pasteboard type", "com.apple.pict", and "Apple PICT pasteboard type", and others).
3) Open Photoshop and choose File > New. (Note that the Preset popup button should automatically be set to "Clipboard", and the dimensions and resolution should reflect those of the image that’s on the pasteboard).
4) Click OK to create the new empty document.
5) Choose Edit > Paste to paste the contents of the image from the clipboard into the new image.
The OP said he could open the file in Preview from where he could do the copying.
Thanks for elaborating, but I got the distinct impression the OP could not open the file at all. If he can open it in Preview, then I had somehow missed that.
Although I can Edit > Copy within Preview, the following error message appears in Photoshop: "Could not import the clipboard because of an error getting data from the clipboard or another application."
However, your other suggestion to use Preview’s crop tool to split the file in half and recombine in Photoshop does work and is a credible alternative -thank you.
The application that generated the file has nothing to do with the problem. (there is no such thing as "Photoshop TIFF", just files written to the TIFF standard)
Most applications cannot correctly read or write files over 2 Gig. If your TIFF file was written by an application that cannot handle files over 2 Gig, then it is probably corrupt and cannot be opened correctly. Now, it is possible that another application might open the image data — if the part that is corrupt is not read by that application. That might allow you to resave the image data.
If you really want to know the details – get me a copy of the file that won’t open and I can dissect it.
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