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Hi,

I am having trouble opening a JPEG file. The particular file was
created on a friend's HP Scanner and is 1.6 MB in size. I use Photoshop
Elements 1, and the file is either very slow to open, or the computer
locks up when trying to open it. When I have been able to open the
image, after retouching it, the computer locks up when trying to save
it. Opening JPEG files of similar size taken with my digital camera are
no problem at all.

Any suggestions as to what the problem may be?
Thanks in advance for your advice.

Paul

"stormwatcher" <> writes:

> Hi,
>
> I am having trouble opening a JPEG file. The particular file was
> created on a friend's HP Scanner and is 1.6 MB in size. I use Photoshop
> Elements 1, and the file is either very slow to open, or the computer
> locks up when trying to open it. When I have been able to open the
> image, after retouching it, the computer locks up when trying to save
> it. Opening JPEG files of similar size taken with my digital camera are
> no problem at all.

Post the image somewhere, and maybe someone will be able to analyze
it.

--
Måns Rullgård

stormwatcher wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I am having trouble opening a JPEG file. The particular file was
> created on a friend's HP Scanner and is 1.6 MB in size. I use Photoshop
> Elements 1, and the file is either very slow to open, or the computer
> locks up when trying to open it. When I have been able to open the
> image, after retouching it, the computer locks up when trying to save
> it. Opening JPEG files of similar size taken with my digital camera are
> no problem at all.
>
> Any suggestions as to what the problem may be?
> Thanks in advance for your advice.
>
> Paul

Hi Paul...

With no disrepect, thinking that if someone else scanned it for you,
that perhaps you have a too slow, or insufficient memory, or too little
disk space problem?

Maybe you'd like to post what it is you're using.

Take care.

Ken

stormwatcher wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I am having trouble opening a JPEG file. The particular file was
> created on a friend's HP Scanner and is 1.6 MB in size. I use Photoshop
> Elements 1, and the file is either very slow to open, or the computer
> locks up when trying to open it. When I have been able to open the
> image, after retouching it, the computer locks up when trying to save
> it. Opening JPEG files of similar size taken with my digital camera are
> no problem at all.
>
> Any suggestions as to what the problem may be?

What size is the image in pixels?
How much memory and disk do you have?
What PC & OS ?
Is it only Elements 1 that dies or do other apps also croak?

On the face of it I would be inclined to suspect toy Photoshop...

> Thanks in advance for your advice.

Post the thing on the web and it can be analysed. Much as I personally
dislike older HP scanners for their wildy unstable USB connections (I
have one). I have never had any problems with image quality from it.

The fact that it dies horribly about one in ten times that the screen
saver kicks in is very annoying and I will never buy another.

Regards,
Martin Brown

On 15 Nov 2005 12:29:52 -0800, stormwatcher wrote:

> Any suggestions as to what the problem may be?
> Thanks in advance for your advice.

I don't have Photoshop Elements, but with IrfanView (free) you can
see how much memory your 1.6MB file would require. If the JPG file
is highly compressed, it may be using so much memory as to create
stability problems for your particular computer. If that's the
case, try again, making sure that no other programs are running
other than Elements, including any background tasks such as virus
scanners, etc. Running low on disk space on the drive that
contains the Windows Swap File can also cause problems. That
happened to me once, and as a result, small print jobs would
succeed, but large ones always failed, until I freed up additional
space on the C: drive.

Here's some more info. I'm using Windows XP with 512 MB of RAM, 40 GB
drive with 25 GB free space. The photo will not open with Windows
Picture and Fax Viewer either.

I downloaded IrfanView and it will slowly open the picture. The width
is 5924 pixels with a heigth of 8336 pixels. IrfanView shows 1.62 MB as
the image size and 141.28 MB as the current memory size. Is this where
the problem lies?

I want to retouch the photo and save it in a format that is more easily
accessible in the future.

I have yet to post any images on the net. Any suggestions where I might
quickly do this?

Thanks,
Paul

stormwatcher wrote:

> Here's some more info. I'm using Windows XP with 512 MB of RAM, 40 GB
> drive with 25 GB free space. The photo will not open with Windows
> Picture and Fax Viewer either.
>
> I downloaded IrfanView and it will slowly open the picture. The width
> is 5924 pixels with a heigth of 8336 pixels. IrfanView shows 1.62 MB as
> the image size and 141.28 MB as the current memory size. Is this where
> the problem lies?
>
> I want to retouch the photo and save it in a format that is more easily
> accessible in the future.
>
> I have yet to post any images on the net. Any suggestions where I might
> quickly do this?
>
> Thanks,
> Paul

Hi Paul...

That's a pretty big picture; I wouldn't expect windows to open it, or
even try.

The numbers work out about right, so there's probably nothing wrong with
the data. However feel free to email me a copy if you like, if it's not
of something personal I'll be happy to open it (and time it)

It is however quite highly compressed, it's probably going to be quite
"artefact-y"

And finally, I suspect your speed isn't out of order, not the failing
to re-save it. 512 megs is imho insufficient memory - perhaps
marginally work, but just barely. Try shutting down any (if any) other
applications while you play with it.

Good luck, and take care.

Ken

On 15 Nov 2005 17:03:05 -0800, stormwatcher wrote:

> I downloaded IrfanView and it will slowly open the picture. The width
> is 5924 pixels with a heigth of 8336 pixels. IrfanView shows 1.62 MB as
> the image size and 141.28 MB as the current memory size. Is this where
> the problem lies?
>
> I want to retouch the photo and save it in a format that is more easily
> accessible in the future.

That sounds like the cause of your problem. That image is HUGE.
Editing it requires even more memory. I'd try to have IrfanView
save it immediately after opening it. Use a fairly high compression
ratio. In IrfanView "speak", this would be a moderately low value
for the "Save Quality" in the JPEG/GIF Save Options window.

If your computer doesn't have enough memory to do this without
crashing, as a last resort you could try to have your friend rescan
the photo, using much more realistic parameters. The 1.6MB file
size isn't the problem. The memory size should be far less than
141MB, and (assuming that a 35mm negative was scanned) the output
resolution of 5924x8336 pixels (49MP) is way too high. That might
even be a bit high for some scans of MF negatives. Note that
Canon's and Nikon's highest res. sensors, which probably produce
higher resolution images than most people achieve with 35mm color
film, are only about 16MP and 12MP. If the image could be rescanned
to produce a 12MP image, assuming that your friend is competent at
scanning, you'd probably be pleased with the result.

On 15 Nov 2005 17:03:05 -0800, stormwatcher wrote:

> I have yet to post any images on the net. Any suggestions where I might
> quickly do this?

Many of the websites that offer free services restrict the
resolution to less than that of your images. As an alternative, you
could easily post them to a binary newsgroup. The only caveats
would be first, to make sure that the newsgroup is carried by the
news servers used by the people that would try to download them.
Second, understand that the image files would only be available for
a short period, depending on the user's server. The usual range is
from about 3 or 4 days for the free servers provided by most ISPs,
to several weeks, even a month or more for premium servers. Two
that might work are alt.binaries.photos.original and
alt.binaries.pictures. There are hundreds of similar
alt.binaries.pictures.* newsgroups. I just checked
alt.binaries.pictures.spam and it was completely empty, making it
very convenient, if non-spam photos aren't frowned on by the
spammers.

Well, after closing all other programs, I got the JPEG to open in
Photoshop. I resized the picture to 2000 x 3000 pixels and saved it a
lower quality resolution. At that point, the file size became 291kb and
18.7mb when opened. This works fine and the resolution still appears
quite good.

How much can JPEG compress? I never thought a 1.6MB file could open so
large. I still have s-o-o-o much to learn about digital.

Anyways, thanks for all your suggestions, especially to give IrfanView
a try. It helped!

Paul