Working with large Photoshop File

Hi.

I'm working on a short animation based around an image (supplied by the client) created in PS that features around 200 small layers. The client has asked for each individual layer to "explode" and the reconverge, recreating the original image.

My problem is that the size of the original image is killing my Mac when it comes to rendering. The image itself is MUCH bigger than I need for the video.

What would be the best solution to the issue, baring in mind that I have already pretty much completed the animation? I've got a terrible feeling about this one...

Thanks for any advice anyone can offer.

Stuart.

If you already worked out the animation with the large image, I am afraid that all you can do is pre-render the elements that you can and then comp them back together for the final render. Ideally would have been to re-size the initial image to minimum possible size that would enable you to get a clean looking animation.

Tudor "Ted" Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

You would need to determine the largest you need to have the image- or parts of it- in the frame and then resize accordingly. Also, make sure you work @ 72dpi - you do not need more for video. I usually prep my files in PSD - open up a HD frame (or whatever size my video will be)- copy over all the images (layers) that I will use and scale them here. Just make sure when you import you retain layer size.

Tudor "Ted" Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

Hi again.

I went back to the start and have tried reducing the original image size (scale and resolution) using the recommended setting (Bicubic Sharper) but the resulting image is terrible quality in comparison with the original, to a point where it's pretty unworkable.

Here's a screenshot of the image in Photoshop with the original size info visible.


Is there anything I can do with it to make it workable within AE or am I at a dead end?

My system specs are:
17" Macbook Pro
Processor 2.4 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Graphics AMD Radeon HD 6770M 1024 MB


Much thanks if you can offer anymore advise.

Stuart.

Chris makes a good point about puzzle pieces, which led me to think there may yet be a way around this, depending on the nature of the photoshop document.

Can it be supplied to you in individual layers, which would make the animation far easier?

Dave LaRonde
Sr. Promotion Producer
KCRG-TV (ABC) Cedar Rapids, IA

Even if a typical layer in your PSD is, let's say, just a 10x10 pixel part of the nose, when you bring that into AE it will be a pre-composed layer of 3500x5000 pixel dimension - because that is the size of your PSD. So you are trying to work with 200 of these 3500x5000px layers - YIKES! I am interested to find out if running the crop script I linked to in the earlier post, which will cut out all of the unnecessary alpha and shrink the aforementioned layer down from 3500x5000 to 10x10, actually makes animation more efficient.

So I just gave it a go (managed to find some time). and to be honest I'm not entirely sure what difference it made.

What you said about each layer being the size of the PSD, well I'm not sure that they are... Each layer's bounding box is only the size of the individual layer, not the size of the comp. This is even before I run the script. Of course I could be mis-understanding however.

Anyways, I ran the script all the same but it doesn't seem to have made any difference to the render time unfortunately.

Back to to the drawing board I guess.

I've asked the designer of the image if he has a smaller version of the image but I'm not holding my breath.

Stuart