10-24-2024, 07:51 AM
(This post was last modified: 10-24-2024, 01:17 PM by rich2005.
Edit Reason: typo
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(10-24-2024, 01:14 AM)jrickards Wrote: ...
I opened 8 ~16Mpx photo images as layers. I first tried 8 PNG (~80MB each) but the XCF file was huge (919MB) so I exported the photos from darktable as JXL (~4MB each) and the XCF was still huge (925MB), both XCF saved with the higher compression option.
.......Is there any way to create a layered XCF file that isn't so huge?
It does not really matter much about the original image format, jpeg will be 8 bit lossy-compressed / png 8 bit (probably) lossless-compressed / tiff (alsorts) when inside Gimp the format is just pixel information so the size generally shows larger than the sum of original images. Coming from Darktable then the precision is probably 32 bit floating point and correspondingly larger than an 8 bit image.
Then you can add on any alpha channels and while Gimp is open any undo information.
When it comes to saving a Gimp .xcf image, it is compressed to certain extent (run-length encoding I think) and is lossless.
For a slightly smaller file size you can use secondary compression and save as a .xcf.gz and a comparison.
8 layers (jpegs about 7.5 MB each) 545 MB in Gimp saves ,xcf 8bit as 381 MB .xcf.gz 304 MB and "better" .xcf.gz 280 MB a bit of a saving
32 bit float is 2.6 GB in Gimp and similar, a 32 bit "better" xcf.gz file size is 436 MB
...obviously depends on images, do your own comparisons.
Quote:Photoshop has a "Place Linked" option which I presume doesn't copy the placed files into the working file, presumably creating a much smaller saved copy of the working file. (I have PS at work but I haven't explored this option so I'm guessing)
I am guessing this is similar to Inkscape importing a bitmap image. Your choice, embed into the image or add a link to the file.
It depends how trusting you are. Move to a different computer / network and the source(s) might disappear. Using Cloud storage ? Here today , Gone tomorrow.