What stills digital file format has highest resolution?

[Paul Leeming]

A friend of mine just finished working on a massive 36,000 pixel wide panorama image for a client and had issues when he reached the apparent 4GB file size limit of a 16bit TIFF file.

To get around it he had to convert to 8bit and finish from there.

(BTW he's using NTFS drives so we're not talking OS limitations)

So I was wondering, which digital image file formats are unlimited in resolution and bit depth?

From what I understand Photoshop PSD files top out at 30,000 pixels wide.

Thanks!

Paul

 

[jake blackstone]

(BTW he's using NTFS drives so we're not talking OS limitations)

Not to nitpick, but my understanding, that under XP 32 even NTFS formatted drives are limited to 2 GB in size. 64 bit OS, like XP 64 or Win 7 removes this limitation.

 

[Richard Foster]

Paul you can save files in Photoshop up to 300,000x300,000 pixels and up to several terabytes.
See http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Photoshop/11.0/WSfd1234e1c4b69f30ea53e41001031ab64-7782a.html
and
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Photoshop/11.0/WSfd1234e1c4b69f30ea53e41001031ab64-7943a.html
and
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/photoshop/cs/using/WSfd1234e1c4b69f30ea53e41001031ab64-7943a.html

Also you can of course segment the file into smaller units and stitch depending on how the final output is handled.

Hope this helps.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

What OS is he running? 4GB file limits are very real, so this may be a concern unless he's running Win7 64bit with current NTFS. He may also want to consider using EXFAT instead of NTFS for a large file storage volume. EXFAT lacks some features of NTFS, but is also more forward thinking in terms of file size, volume size, and some some areas regarding performance.

http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs_vs_fat.htm

TIFF files contain a 32bit internal pointer reference to their own data. You can not create a TIFF file larger than 4GB, regardless of which OS and file system you are using.

Save the file in Photoshop Large File PSB format. Files can be larger than any amount of storage you can currently attach and they support up to 32bits/pixel. Photoshop also pages and performs better with PSB images than with trying to bulk load a TIFF file.

For final output, do as Richard suggests. Segment and stitch. But this will depend on his application for this final output and how he needs it presented. PSB format may still be an option for finish -- it's an open format that anyone can write a file loader for.

 

[Radim Schreiber]

Yes, PSD and TIFF have 4gb limit. I believe since version CS2 Photoshop can save Large Document Format *.PSB, that goes way beyond that limit.

 

[Elsie N]

I know this is vague, but years ago I used something called Genuine Fractals, and I'm wondering if their file format would remove any limits?

 

[Paul Leeming]

Thanks for the info all, I'll pass it on!

He's on Windows 7 64bit so it's the TIFF and PSD file size limitations he's coming up against.

Looks like PSB is the best option.

Cheers,

Paul

 

[Chad Lancaster]

I save all the drum scans of my 4x10 film in ".PSB"
a website about it said..

When creating large documents in Photoshop and you want to maintain PS-native features the .psb file format is the way to go. Before you do, keep these things in mind.

Documents saved in the Photoshop (.psd) or TIFF (.tif) format cannot exceed 4 GB.
Documents saved in Photoshop's new Large Document (.psb) format can exceed 4 GB.
The maximum image size for the .psb format is 300,000 pixels square (horiz. and vert.)
The .psb format supports Photoshop-specific features such as Adjustment Layers, vector shapes, channels, etc.