My Paper is HUGE (re: file size) any suggestions? - SBB Digital Scrapbooking Forums | Scrapbook-Bytes

acheese89 · #1 (**permalink**) 06-26-2006

Hi! I've been designing papers and mini kits and the paper size when I'm finished is so big I'm having a hard time filesharing it. I'm starting with a 12 inch by 12 inch document, 300 ppi, and have tried both flattening it before saving and leaving it in layers. They are not that complicated of papers although I am layering a PNG texture over them. I can't seem to get a paper that is under 6 MB. That seems huge compared to what I see other's creating. Can anyone share your method of creating and saving a piece of paper in Photoshop CS??? Thanks ahead of time for any explanations!

Edited a few minutes later:
O.K., I saved plain solid colored paper the same way and it was pretty small in file size so I'm pretty sure my problem is how I'm creating a texture to reuse time after time. So I guess the question/topic should be changed to TEXTURE CREATING question. Any tips on this?

kimlizzy · #2 (**permalink**) 06-26-2006

It's not unusual to have a 6mb paper. Are you saving as jpg? If not, you will have a large size. Papers and any element that doesn't need transparency are best saved as jpg. I have papers in jpg format that are over 10mb so 6 really isn't that bad. I find the more textures/plugins I use on a paper, the larger the file size will be. I'm sure someone with Photoshop will be able to give you more input on what you can do to reduce the file size.

acheese89 · #3 (**permalink**) 06-26-2006

I've been looking at others' papers and I think when I save I should be saving as quality of nine instead of twelve. Seems to make a big difference. Thanks Kim for your advice, I am saving as a Jpeg, just for the papers. Also going to check into a different file sharing site that will give me a higher file size limit!

Sarah96 · #4 (**permalink**) 06-26-2006

Yep, Amy...the quality is the key to reducing the size. As you said, saving as 9 or maybe even 8 if you have many layers may be needed. When you add textures and additional layers the file gets larger and larger. I usually save my papers at about size 9.

:-) hope that helps