CS Photomerge - Not enough RAM problem

[Siraj]

I have been using photomerge to create a photo collage. I have a P3 Ghz with 2GB Ram. 320 GB harddisk in 3 partitions.

I tried to stitch up about 28 pictures about 6 mp each (total less than 200mb). I had no problems putting the pictures in place however, when I clicked on ok to create the collage, it will execute some processes then abruptly stops with and insufficient RAM error.

I changed the memory allocation to CS from 5% to 90% in increments of 5% (yes I tried that many times!) still to no avail. I even allocated a whole partition of my harddisk (80GB) for the scratch disk. I even stopped most of the programs from running to conserve my RAM.

How do I get this to work? 2GB of Ram for some 200 MB of pictures and its not enough?

 

[scandisk]

scratch disk settings perhaps? maybe should set it at the partition with most disk space...

 

[Andy Ang]

Nope, the file size during the processing & rendering is very much inflated. a 6MP's 2MB (JPEG) pic can go up to 200MB in processing. Especially when you do a photostitch of 28 photos all at one go. Because a layer have to form on another layer, and which third layer adds on first 2 layers. In the end, every pic you used will add in exponentially more load.

My system can take max. around 18 pics, 6MP.

My advise is, stich in batches of around 7, do that 4 times, then stitch the 4.

 

[Siraj]

Hey Andy thanx so much for explaining to me the reason why my 2GB RAM is insufficient. Will probably do it one step at a time as you have suggested. Though I have another question.

From my understanding when windows does not have enough RAM it will access the virtual memory in the harddisk. Albeit it being slower, it should not give the insufficient RAM issues. Am I right that CS2 has very poor memory allocation ability or is it just me?

 

[Andy Ang]

Nope. Its photomerge. Haha, no lah, Photoshop CS2 in Windows environment actually can only support up to 3.2G RAM or somewhere around there.

Another thing to note. Since your system is using >1G RAM, activate the bigger tile plugins.

Normal location will be:

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS2\Plug-Ins\Adobe Photoshop Only\Extensions\Bigger Tiles

You will see a file named: ~Bigger Tiles
Just rename it: Bigger Tiles (removing the ~)

Need more readups on what it does, open the file: About Bigger Tiles.html
Basically it;-

"The Bigger Tiles plug-in causes Photoshop to process image data in larger chunks. This will reduce the overall time to complete many operations, especially on computers with more than 1 GB of RAM installed. Bigger Tiles will also reduce the responsiveness of the application in some situations. "

Have fun!