Hello,

I tried to search for an answer first on the board here but didn't really see what I am looking for...bear with me, I am still very new to all of this stuff.

I downloaded a few image files (jpgs) that are 12MB each to my computer. I can view them in my windows picture viewer, but can't open them in any other program to resize them to a smaller file size - both Inkscape and Gimp freeze up before the file opens up. I am planning on using these image files as pattern-fill background textures either inside an object or as a background behind objects.

I tried to do a screen grab with the file open in my window picture viewer and then put into MS Paint but it changes the quality of the image too much. I then tried to upload to Photobucket and use their photo editor (pixlr) to size it down, but upon the upload, PB automatically sized it down a bit and then sizing it down further in pixlr (which was still needed) also affected the quality of the image - it looks ok in my windows viewer once I saved the smaller file to my computer but if I try to zoom in on it you can see it is not a very clear image, which I understand happens to raster files, but I can zoom in on the original file (also a raster file) on my computer and the quality never changes....it remains super sharp and clear.

So with that, I have two questions.

The first question: Is there a way to open this file in another program or change the preferences in Inkscape so I can open it here?

Second question - being somewhat of a newbie question as I am still learning about working with different file types (raster vs. vector) - If there is a way to open the original large jpg file in Inkscape and size it down, will I still lose image quality upon doing so even if the original is super sharp and clear (just as what happened in Photobucket/Pixlr and also in MS Paint)?

My computer has 640 MB of RAM, so maybe that is the root of the problem and there's nothing I can do....but interested to hear any tips or advice anyone may have for me.

Thanks!
Mel

It sounds as if you are running windows, but what version of? These days 640MB leaves you with very little extra to work with graphics. If you have Vista or later that would certainly be your problem.
while 12MB is not terribly large, it's difficult to tell how much RAM it will require to open in an application - the key word (actually 4!) is JPEG. A very large pixel dimension file can be compressed into a small JPEG, but when you try to edit it its footprint becomes the size it would be if it had not been compressed, if that's not too technical... Even without opening it your system should be able to tell you in properties or popup what the width and height of this file is, and someone can confirm that that's the problem...

You won't be able to do any "serious" work with so little ram (at least you won't be able to use superheavy texture).

If your current image is a 12mb jpeg then original size (=size that you'll need in ram) was probably 200mb

Remove ram used by OS (300mb ?)
There's a tiny 140 mb remaining.
Remove 40mb for inkscape program.
Only 100mb remaining.
Now inkscape will probably make a cached version of image (around 200mb). Oops no more ram It'll start to write on disk => computer is stalled.

If you want to reduce the resolution of your image you can try xnview or imagemagick

druban, thanks for the reply. I am using Windows XP v.2002. The file at 12.5MB is 12770 x 5776. Regarding compressing the file, here is what I did after I had trouble opening it in Gimp, and prior to trying it in Inkscape. I went into the jpg's properties, went to the "advanced" tab and chose "compress contents to save disc space". Afterwards the file was still showing the same dimensions and file size....not knowing much about compressing files, I wasn't sure what it actually did. But it didn't help obviously. Is that what you were referring to?

v1nce, thank you for your reply too. Yeah, I am finding that out....if I try to use some of the filters or extensions, or when I zoom in to work on small areas, I get the big freeze or a very long delay. I clear my cache and cookies often, have defragged, and try to make sure I have nothing else running when I use Inkscape if possible. Plus I've removed programs I never or rarely use. Not much else I can do there I don't think, short of buying a new computer that is. Good thing I am only a beginner and not really doing major graphics at the moment, but I'm not always sure whether it's my computer or if there's another issue or solution that may help so I thought I'd ask. I'll take a look at those two sites for reducing resolution and see if that works better than what I've done already. Thanks for the suggestions.

to open a 12770 x 5776 image, you need 12770 x 5776 x 3 = 221278560 = 220mb of ram.

Such an image size is more for press print than for screen display.
IMHO Your computer has not enough ram to deal with press ready image.

> if I try to use some of the filters or extensions, or when I zoom in to work on small areas, I get the big freeze or a very long delay

Filters are very ram consuming. My computer has 32gb of ram and still some slowdowns occur (but I use custom complex filters). For filters : the more you zoom, the more time it takes to render.

There's a menu option (sorry can't remember name) where you can choose not to render filters. (and revert it back when your work is finished)

> I'll take a look at those two sites

More than sites those are apps. As they're lighter than gimp and inkscape maybe they could open and resize your image.
You can try ifranview too.

MelM
If you have a free RAM slot on your motherboard it would be worthwhile to install more RAM.
Any graphics work you want to do will likely need more of it than what you have. I have quite a bit more than 658mb, but
both gimp and Inkscape can still lock-up or lag badly if I'm working on a very detailed image. Filters just make that worse,
but I love filters and patterns.

To work on your image, without either removing, or rendering the filters, go to View>Display mode>no filters.
Then you can work on the image, without seeing the filters, and that may reduce lagging render and slow downs while you work.
When you want to see the filters again, just switch the view mode back to Normal.

v1nce, I took a look at those two sites (apps) and imagemagic scared me Looks like you have to know computer codes or progamming? I didn't look at it too closely but I went to xnview and downloaded that one instead. Except that too froze up when I clicked to open that large file. I'll take a peek at ifranview but I may just have to nix the idea of using those images.

Inkspots, thank you for your suggestions. Being new to Inscape I am not sure what it means to not allow filters while working on my graphics. Say I add a drop shadow or roughen the object, do I disallow filters after I apply them and then my creation won't show those features while I am still working on them? I feel like it'd be hard to get a feel for what your overall design is looking like if it is not showing all aspects of it. I guess I'll play with it and see what happens to get a better understanding. Hopefully it will end up helping.

Regarding compressing the file, here is what I did after I had trouble opening it in Gimp, and prior to trying it in Inkscape. I went into the jpg's properties, went to the "advanced" tab and chose "compress contents to save disc space". Afterwards the file was still showing the same dimensions and file size....not knowing much about compressing files, I wasn't sure what it actually did. But it didn't help obviously. Is that what you were referring to?

Sorry, no, I meant at the time the jpg was created the person had compression options smallest file -> largest file = worst quality -> best quality. Nothing you can do about it now.

you can try to open in irfanview (or faststone, my favorite) and the first thing to do is resize or scale to 50 or 25%.

You might try when starting up XP holding some key -- is it F8? F12? that allows you to start Windows 'without extensions'. This takes a lot less RAM, and you might be able to open the image and scale it down.. it won't look good while you do it, but once it's saved smaller you can restart normally and open it in Inkscape or GIMP and work with it.

v1nce wrote: ...but I use custom complex filters

What a gift you have for modesty and understatement, Vince.

Hi.

To turn off filter effects for display; pulldown the View - Display Mode and set No Filters.



On your system it might be an advantage to increase the virtual memory size, see step 2 on this page; http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308417

Good Luck
RGDS
Ragnar

you guys and gals are so helpful here! I really appreciate it

druban, thanks for the additional sources to try and open that file...I'll check them out and see what happens. The smaller one I created may end up working fine - we'll see how it prints out - but it's still good to know about additional sources for opening large files.

ragstian, thanks for the screen shot instructions...very easy to follow! I'll give that a try. As far as increasing virtual memory, I seem to recall having tried that a long while back and ended up getting far too many unresponsive script error messages (which freeze up my computer). I followed the steps and the dialog box is showing my computer is currently set to 957MB initial size and same for maximum size. I am going to try to increase the vm again though to see how it performs - Per microsoft instructions, Maximum should be no more than 1920MB but I am going to go half way in between 957 and 1920 at 1440 and see how that performs, but I am not sure if I am to increase both the initial size and the maximum so they both show the same number, or just increase the maximum?

I know I am digressing to more of a computer tech help here vs. Inkscape help so my apologies for going "off-topic".

Can you use windows to zip the file, then try opening it?

Trying to think of some workarounds - maybe you could upload it to a hosting site that takes larger files (not even sure there is one that can take a file that large).

Or, maybe you could contact one of us privately, e-mail it, then we could re-size it and return it to you. Do you have a pc at work maybe that can handle a file that large, you could e-mail it to yourself, then open it on someone else's pc, and downsize it. (or put it on a thumb drive and take to a friend or work, etc).
I'd offer to do this for you, but not sure my pc can handle it either, I dont have the latest greatest pc either, and Inkscape is having issues opening up my files too, but, i'd be happy to give it a try for ya.
good luck,
dee

Thanks flamingolady...I appreciate the additional suggestions. It was a zip file to begin with after I downloaded it and my computer was able to open it up, it's trying to open it in Inkscape or anywhere else that is the issue. Not a bad suggestion to send it to someone who has a more powerful computer to size it down for me (if they have a program that can resize images) but at this point I am going to try to work with the smaller size I created with screen grab and MS Paint and see how that goes. I opened that smaller file in Inkscape and added it to the object I wanted to put it on and it looks pretty good. But I've gotten sidetracked with other responsibilities so I haven't yet worked on this since I last was on here asking about it all, so we'll see how it prints out once I've finalized the design

windows is getting better with newer versions, not just inkscape, but still most programs don't handle large files well. It's about how the programs are written, rather than the amount of available ram or virtual ram or anything else, which makes a difference. Well written programs (which reside on well designed operating systems) can handle huge image or other files without breaking into a sweat. In the meantime I'd suggest that imagemagick most likely could handle those large jpegs. You only need to learn a tiny bit about running it from the command line and giving it the correct switches to get the job done and there are plenty of examples on the internet to copy from. It makes sense to be able to work with large images using basic operations, downsize by half for example, without having to open and render the image with associated problems. Imagemagick works with the files via the format itself (say jpeg) and applies the desired operation directly on the data to create a new modified copy.

Yeah, I don't see how zipping it would help, because you have to unzip before Inkscape can open it. Hhmm...well not unless you mean SVGZ. SVGZ is a compressed SVG file, but I'm not exactly sure how it works. I guess you'd still have to unzip it, to open it, though?

"You only need to learn a tiny bit about running it from the command line and giving it the correct switches to get the job done and there are plenty of examples on the internet to copy from."

"learn a tiny bit" to you may be a lot more to me since I've no clue about command line codes and have no idea what switches are, but I'll put my brave pants on and give it a try at some point. I appreciate your explanation there too...it helps to better understand these things - and thanks to all of the helpful people here, I'm learning slowly but surely about all of this stuff.

Since you asked...switches or also known as arguments or parameters or options are all the bits of information you pass to the program on the command line. On the command line the program name always goes first and then everything else is switches or arguments or parameters, with a space between each thing. I call them switches because in the case of imagemagick and similar programs, they're used by the program to find out what to do, e.g. what size, what kind of input file, what kind of output file, etc. Like a switchboard of all the valid options. A simple example:<br />
convert image.jpg image.png
convert is the program name (part of imagemagick) and the rest is the input and output file. Imagemagick works out the format to convert from and to according to the filename extension. In this case converting a jpeg to a png format image file.

ok, got it....thanks for taking the time to explain