(reprinted from reddit discussion on large photoshop files)

I have done something silly, and over the span of the last few years I have 'painted' myself in to a corner.

Allow me to explain. More than ten years ago I had a highly detailed paper map of my fantasy Roleplaying stuff. The map dated back well in to the 1980s, and evolved a lot over the years. However towards the mid 90s I moved the old map in to a new context, loosely based on the six Kingdoms in H.P. Lovecrafts Dreamlands. So I scanned my old map, probably somewhere ten years ago, and started repainting it in photoshop.

This went great ! Just doing this I learned a lot about layers, effects, how to paint mountains. I started with a small central area 5000 by 5000 pixels. But then I did the stupid thing. I started making the canvas bigger. And bigger. And bigger. Now the canvas is so large I don't even want to say here how big. It has dozens of layers and it is so many gigabytes I equally don't want to share. Some friend calculated how to long it would take to finish and it would be years, if I worked at it on a daily basis. Printed on 300dpi it would be bigger than several meters. Several years ago I could and I did but right now I can't. Very peculiar.

***

The total file is 50.000 pixels from north to south, and 40.000 pixels east to west. I have recently cut it up in 20 sections of each just over 10.000 pixels side by side, since it had lagged my PC to a standstill. I intend to restart work on the inner Kingdoms section radiating outwards. I tried posting it here, but for some uncanny reason I am not allowed to.

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