Oversized 300 DPI 80*50 Inch poster (Photoshop, Illustrator, Hardware)

Question

I am creating a very large high quality print poster of an island map to be pasted on a wall in a public transport centre. The map is built from paid satellite images. Photoshop is running so slow I can barely use it, Then when I import into illustrator to do roads and icons etc, it crashes usually within a couple minutes.

Is there any tips on how I can handle this? I have already thought of using a low quality image in illustrator and then swapping at the very end, I noticed Photoshop is not using my graphics card, still sitting on 2% use when my RAM and CACHE is totally maxed out, is there anything I can do about this? I am also wondering about the printers, they say the size in inches is fine, but I can not save as PDF as it is oversized.

I figure I have to go buy more RAM, as I see it maxing out (DDR4 3200 32GB), I also see my Cache drive maxing out(SSD 128GB), which one is more important? I either buy more ram or better drive.

Anyway I am just asking if anyone has any advice.

Answer 1

The advice I can give you is, do it the right way.

I am creating a very large high-quality print poster

No, quality is a process, not just a mythical output resolution, and this process needs to analyze the requirements, and the requirements of a wall print are NOT 300PPI.

You will be fine at 100PPI, you will barely notice a pixel at 1 meter, Even at 30CM will be fine. You will see the ink dots before seeing the pixel.

This will reduce the weight of the file by 9 times.

You can even work with a file of 50PPI and the image will look fine and reduce the file size 36 times.

I am sure you want to "show off" the resolution of the images, and I am sure you will.

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Another tip would be to work on tiles. You would not be able to sent to print a humungous extra big oversized file. Send instead clear tiles to be assembled on site. Find out what is the width of the panels the provider will send and work on that template.

Answer 2

First of all, save as .psb not .psd

.psb is capable of more content. Do not use smart-objects. They will increase your use of memory. Try to reduce layers, if possible.

Go to the Presets (Ctrl + K):

Don't max out Memory, always keep 20 to 25% as the other apps and the os takes memory too. Taking more will slow down your machine.

Decrease the number of Protocol-steps: 10, maybe 15 is enough. Take a look at my Cache-Settings.

If you have a seconadry SSD, enlist it here.