Not sure about any memory solutions but cutting up the board is simple enough.

Select the slice tool and draw a box round the entire paste board. Next, on right clicking (control + click with mac), you should get the drop down menu, one of the options should be 'divide slice'. Select it then you have the option of spliting the first slice horizontally and vertically in to as many pieces as you want. Then when you use rectangular marquee tool it should snap to the slice lines. You can then copy and paste into a new document. This of course may need to be done for all the layers in that slice unfortunately. I dont know of any better way sadly. It certainly should be an option Adobe consider for the next version.

thanks, atowle. Actually, I think I'll use the crop tool. I've set up guide lines to divide the sheets. I'll crop out each sheet and save it accordingly. Then go back into history and repeat for all sheets. This way you get all the layers at once. I’ll probably have 30-40 layers min, so this is really the only way to go about it.

i would probably suggest working with indesign if you have it. with indesign the program does not deal with actual image files, but rather proxies (or references) of those images. if, after the layout is done, (or in the process of laying it out) images need to be tweaked, cropped, etc, then that can be done in photoshop and then updated into your indesign layout. this will significantly decrease the lagtime you are experiencing with your computer. in the end indesign will "package" your project and group all associated files together in one folder so it can be taken to another computer for manipulation or to the printers.

sorry, at this point i know the last thing you want somebody to tell you is to do things another way. in the past, though, i've found indesign to be better than photoshop for final layouts.

Thanks juicebox, I actually just got Indesign 2.0 ( I think its an older version, but I'll take what I can get). I'm planning on using it to do my portfolio. My current portfolio is in Pagemaker. I used the linking files options extensively in it. I've had a couple mishaps due to lost file paths, but other than that it was good.

Do you know if Indesign supports transparency? In Pagemaker I had to create oodles of clipping plans and that was a pain in the ass.

considering I present tomorrow, I don't think now is a good time to experiment with indesign. Thanks for the info.

Not much to say, being due tomorrow.

Just make sure you don't have any unnecessary programs running and make your scratch drive as large as possible.

When I start to have huge files with a gagillion layers, I save out a master and then merge the layers I am pretty sure I'll keep. It can significantly reduce the file size.
Quick way to do that is to make Sets, highlight the set, and merge it all at once.

I recall pagemaker supporting transparency, but it was about 7 years ago that I used it. I know it did with my plans and sections.

trace, thanks for the tip. layer organization is super key here.

Pagemaker doesn't support transparency in jpegs, but does recognize clipping planes in tiffs. The only way I've found to bring line drawings in is using bitmaps. However, image quality is very poor.

I've been working in a separate file from the big one then dragging layers into it. This seems to be working well. It just sucks when I have to wait 5 mins for the file to save. better safe than sorry. back to work i go.

i know you have a key to the computer lab brian, but did you actually get all your boards printed and mounted in time to present your thesis since it was today apparently?

good luck to you by the way.

In Design does support transparency, although, it sounds like your problem was not with pagemaker, but with your file format. You can't make a "transparent" jpg. Jpg's don't support transparency. PNG's and GIF's do, however.

It's probably too late, but if you have to layout large graphic files, you should flatten them when you're done. Keep a copy of the layer file and make a flat version. And you should defintely be using InDesign for your page layout, Photoshop isn't made for that, and it's not very good at it.

Momentum, Yes I got everything plotted in time. First, everyone else turned in their thesis last week. Second, the key comes with other unmentionable print lab privileges as well. I plotted a total of 3 3'x6' sheets. I sent two of them before a bunch of kids in condocs got here to print. It took me about 3 hours to get the 3rd one to print due to printer errors, dumb students, and other things. However, having keys to the lab has been invaluable this semester. I presented my project at two and was all finished at 4. Just in time for happy hour so I thought. I went home to take a quick nap, and slept till 7am this morning. Oh what a great feeling it is to have this thing on the wall. I'll blog more about the review and my final work later.


Pencrush, you’re right about jpg not supporting transparency. I need to look into png's though. I'll get into InDesign this semester and see what it’s all about.