TIFF Trouble

Over the week-end I shot a new Alster panorama. It was done with 22 individual, overlapping photos (D2x NEF), which were loaded into Panorama Factory to build the pano. No problem, yet.

The PF result was saved as a TIFF and loaded into PSCS2 for some refinement, specifically cloning/healing. Again the result was saved as TIFF (over the old one); it is 520 MB large, 422270 x 4306 Px in dimensions.

Unfortunately iView MediaPro is unable to show the file (Invalid media data) as is IrfanView, which cannot make up its mind if it is a decoding error or too large an image. A Save as TIFF in PS didn't change anything (sometimes it does). When I went to Save as a JPEG, this format was not listed although no layers are in the original, which is in 8bit. Is there a size limit to JPEG?

Has anybody an idea what could be up with the TIFF, and is there a remedy?

Hi Dierk,

If I am not mistaken, the TIFF file size is limited a maximum of 4 GB (due to 32-bit pointers used).

When I use your figures:

422270 x 4306 pixels; I end up having 1,810,000,000 pixels times 3 bytes (for 24 bits) = 5.4 GB!

Is this maybe your problem?

BTW, is having 422,270 pixels to one side even possible with 22 pictures or is there a typo in the order of 10? (which I guess is the case)

Cheers,

Cem

Cem Usakligil said:

typo in the order of 10? (which I guess is the case)

Click to expand...

Typo, as can be seen from the 520 MB figure: 42270.

Dierk Haasis said:

Typo, as can be seen from the 520 MB figure: 42270.

Click to expand...

I think most programs have a dimension limit of <32000 pixels.

Bart

This is what I did to test things out:

1) Created a new file in PS CS2 with the following dimensions: 42270x4306 / 8-bit. PS displayed a warning message: "Documents greater than 30,000 pixels in either dimension will not be compatible with older versions of Photoshop and/or other applications"
2) Went ahead and created the file anyway. Filled it with some random colours. Saved as TIFF. Size is 533 MB.
3) Tried opening it with Lightroom Beta 4. Refused it by saying the file is too big. Tried viewing with IrfanView (latest version 3.98). Success! Tried viewing ith with Windows Picture and Fax Viewer: Failure!

4) Created a new image with the following dimensions: 21135x8612 / 8-bit.Filled it with some random colours. Saved as TIFF. Size is 533 MB.
5) Tried opening it with Lightroom Beta 4. Refused it by saying the file is too big. Tried viewing with IrfanView. Success! Tried viewing ith with Windows Picture and Fax Viewer: Success!

6) Resized the original test image to: 42270x1000, file size: 124 MB.
7) Tried opening it with Lightroom Beta 4. Still refused it by saying the file is too big. Tried viewing ith with Windows Picture and Fax Viewer: Failure!

8) Resized the original test image to: 42270x300, file size: 37 MB.
9) Tried opening it with Lightroom Beta 4. Still refused it by saying the file is too big.

10) Tried opening a previously scanned image file (TIF) of 160 MB large in Lightroom. SUCCESS!

11) Opened the image of step 10 in PS. Modified it somewhat. Saved it as another copy (TIF). Tried opening in Lightroom: success again.

12) Resized the image of step 11 to: 42270x1000. Saved it as another copy (TIF). Tried opening in Lightroom: FAILURE!. Tried viewing ith with Windows Picture and Fax Viewer: Failure!

13) Resized the image of step 11 to: 21135x2000. Saved it as another copy (TIF). Tried opening in Lightroom: FAILURE!. Tried viewing ith with Windows Picture and Fax Viewer: Success!

14) Resized the image of step 11 to: 10,000x10,000. Saved it as another copy (TIF). 800 MB (16bits with alpha channel). Tried opening in Lightroom: SUCCES!. Tried viewing ith with Windows Picture and Fax Viewer: Success!


My conclusions:
a) Inconclusive as to if there is a limit of 32000 pixels to one side of the image. IrfanView deals with it rather well. MS Picture and Fax Viewer has this limit. Lightroom has a much lower limit, somewhere between 10,000 and 21,135. Conclusive: there is certainly a limit imposed upon the dimensions of the image (in line with the statement made by Bart earlier and the warning message issued by PS).
b) File size of the panorama made by Dierk is not the cause of the problem. All programs are able to open/display files up to at least 800 MB.
c) iView MediaPro must have similar problems to that of Lightroom, i.e. pixel dimensions.
d) IrfanView of Dierks needs an upgrade .

Hope this clarifies things a bit, cheers!

Cem