I'm slicing a very tall psd now (1200 x 5000 px) and when I hit save for web and devices, photoshop says that the image is too big to save. I have ended up cropping the image but I'd really like to know what to do with this error. I'm using photoshop cs5 on windows 7, if it helps.
1 Answer
As Joonas mentions, it's more or a warning. Save for web and devices is a great tool for picking a good quality vs size ratio balance - images need to be lighter to load faster, but quality should remain good.
It lets you compare different export options, and see the results live next to each other. When you are trying to save such a big image for web, it's just telling you it might be a little too much to visualize (imagine 4 different outputs, each of 1200 x 5000).
Ideally, big images would just be Saved as JPG in Save As (thing is, you can't see the quality preview), but because you have slices you can't really do this. What you could do, is converting some of your elements into Smart Objects. That way, you only need to open those elements and save them for web.
Having said that, if your computer can easily handle big files, there's no reason why you can't continue using Save for Web. You probably need to see the slices you are saving, and it saves more time than having separated objects, so it's ok.
.psd? We may be able to suggest a better alternative to his issue.