The image is too big

[bmalanaphy]

I'm using an Epson 4990 scanner, with Silverfast v6.4.4r7a on Mac OS X (Tiger).

I'm scanning 8x10 transparencies and on a prior (Windows) version of Silverfast I was able to scan them with file sizes of 2.5GB. Now when I try to scan them in 48 Bit Color mode at 2400dpi, with an indicated file size 2437MB, I receive the following message:

"The image is too large ( 2GByte )"

I'm not sure why it's not letting me do the scan.

Thanks for any help!

- Brian

[LSI_Noack]

Dear Brian

two megabytes should be enough for anybody...
No, seriously, the two meg file size limit had ever been present in our software, and it is likely to stay with us until a complete new revision (version 7 or something like it) will be published.

Please note that the purpose of the imaging forum is not to provide personal support. It is intended to serve as a platform for imaging professionals for exchange of experience and communicating ideas [ viewtopic.php?p=9763&highlight=9763 ].
Therefore LSI staff will only provide limited support in the forum.
Thank you in anticipation of your kind co-operation.

Best regards
Sonny Noack
- Manager Technical Support, LaserSoft Imaging AG -

[bmalanaphy]

This is incorrect. I tested this on my old Windows PC with the same Epson 4990 scanner, but instead with an older Silverfast AI version 6.4.3r8, and I can in fact scan an 8x10 inch color transparency in 48bit Color mode at 2400dpi and it produces a TIFF file that is about 2.4GB with no problem.

Also, I didn't see anywhere in the documentation of the software or on your website that mentions a 2GB file size limit.

So, is this just a limitation because of the Mac OS X (Tiger) platform (and not a windows limitation)? It doesn't seem to make sense that if it wasn't a limit in the software before, that suddenly newer versions of the software have this 2GB limit. And why have the limit anyway - especially when Photoshop can handle files much larger than 2GB?

Thanks,

- Brian

[Greg Davis]

I would like to second that irritation of file size limit of 2GB. I bought the scanner I got because I wanted to scan 8x10 color negatives at 48bit and 4000 dpi. This creates a file of 8GB, which my scanner and computer can easily handle, but the scanning software does not? Nowhere on this website or in the documentation was there a mention of a 2GB limit. Quite frankly I would not have spent the $700 to purchase the software in the first place had I known I would not be able to use the full power of my scanner. This is extremely disappointing. I feel it is akin to "bait and switch" to sell this software as the best solution for professional scanning and then not mention a severe limit like this anywhere.

[LSI_Morales]

Dear bmalanaphy,
Dear Greg,
Dear SilverFast users,

As my colleague S_Noack already explained, there is (and always have been so) a 2 GB size limit in SilverFast and as he also explained we will try to remove or at least broaden this limit to a bigger size.

You will find that programs like Photoshop also had the same size limit (until version CS3). The main reason for that is that operating systems could not manage more than 2 GB of RAM, now with OS like Vista, Linux or Leopard, bigger ammounts of RAM memory can be accepted (4, 8, 16, 32 GB respectively). You have to understand that if SilverFast or any other program was working with a file of 2 GB size, you would need to have 2 or more GB RAM to be able to process the mentioned file, since that was technically not possible, we had to put this size limit on our end files.

Even if you are using a system with 8 GB RAM (which is not the most common thing or in your case Greg with an 8 GB end file), think of SilverFast handling the end file size multimplied by the operations and filters you are using (say 3 or 4 filters), then you would still have to have a huge RAM size which is not common.

In Greg's concrete case, let say you are scanning your 8 GB negative using 4X multisampling and a color correction filter, you would need a RAM of (8GB+ (8x4 MultisamplingGB) + 8 GB color correction)= 48 GB. I am sure that at your best, using a MAC Pro with 32 GB ram you would be having problems to scan the mentioned image. It would already be an impossible task to accomplish with a Vista computer with 4 GB RAM, even if your end file was about the size of the the mentioned 2 GB limit, you would need 10 GB RAM to process the picture.

As my colleague already explained, we will try to modify this limit in a future release with a complete reprogramming of the whole basic frame of the application.

We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause and appreaciate your understanding.

[bmalanaphy]

Just wondering if the 2GB file limit will soon be fixed? I would like to upgrade to the newest version of Silverfast AI, but upon testing it on my Mac Pro I am still unable to scan an 8x10 transparency at 2400dpi because the file size is more than 2GB. However, as I mentioned last year on this subject, and despite the technical answer given above from the Silverfast support team, I actually am able to scan larger than 2GB on my old Windows XP Pro machine running the older version 6.4.3r8 of Silverfast AI. How is this so if it's technically not possible in the software?

Couldn't you folks come out with a patch to remove the 2GB limit on the latest Mac OS X version of Silverfast AI? It works in version 6.4.3r8 on the PC platform.

Thanks,

- Brian

[LSI_Ketelhohn]

Size limitations will be removed in the next major release of SilverFast.

kind regards
Arne Ketelhohn

[bmalanaphy]

Great, thanks! Any idea of approximately when that might be?

- Brian

[LSI_Ketelhohn]

Sorry we do not have an exact release date so far.

kind regards
Arne Ketelhohn

[agb]

Hi!

I know this is quite an old thread (from 2 years ago already) but the 2GB limit is still not fixed.
I'm bumping into that problem when scanning large negatives for very large prints.
When will the new major version that supports files larger than 2GB be released?

Best wishes,
Aline Baggio

[LSI_Ketelhohn]

An exact Date is not available so far but we are planning of releasing it this year.

[thrice]

And now it is released and the limitation remains.

[LSI_Morales]

Hi there,

And now it is released and the limitation remains.

Absolutely not true, the limitation is now the standard of every file format, for instance TIFF can write up to 6 GB.

Cheers

[thrice]

Hi there,

And now it is released and the limitation remains.

Absolutely not true, the limitation is now the standard of every file format, for instance TIFF can write up to 6 GB.

Cheers

Fair enough, I wait to see what tech support says to explain the inability of Silverfast 8 to save my TIFF files >2GB when Epsonscan and v**s**n have no problems. Must be isolated to my system.

[LSI_Ketelhohn]

Fair enough, I wait to see what tech support says to explain the inability of SilverFast 8 to save my TIFF files >2GB when Epsonscan and v**s**n have no problems. Must be isolated to my system.

Please make sure you are not trying to save into a FAT32 filesystem.
Those can only store files up to 2GB.
For harddrives you should use NTFS (PC) or OSX extended (journaled).
For flash media you should use exFAT.
(attention do not format a flash drive to NTFS!)

kind regards,
Arne Ketelhohn-