Paint.net Memory Usage Question

[trinsic]

Hi, Im a avid Paint.net user as I dont like using software with heavy DRM restrictions. Latley I have been working with big files and have been having some performance issues. I took a look around the forums and I notice some old posts regarding this matter back in 2008 that mentioned that images are dumped into ram so paint.net can handle them easier. Then I read about 4.0 and that there was a plan on better memory usage using tile based memory handling.

 

I havent seen any latest news on the subject or if there Is I missed it and appogise for that.

 

My question is I have a 25 gig pdn file that I am working with, with over 30 layers. Its a PC Game Geographical map with pictures of each location, specific overlays and text to describe each place. When I load this image I notice that paint.net is taking 2.5gigs of memory. Its a rather large image  in dimneions: 5407 x 2085. I was wondering if 2.5gigs if ran for a image this large was right, and if so were there any plans to improve memory usage (if possible) or is there any way to decrase the memory usage without decreasing the dimensions? I hate to ask but maybe this is not the right program for this job I am doing an if so would it be ok to ask for a recommendation? I might need a more powerful  drm-free graphics editor to do this job, but I do not want to use software with drm restirctions. Im moving towards open source software as I feel like more and more developers are moving to cloud based products which I dont think is the right way to go.

 

The reason I have so many layers is because I cant move objects around with out creating a new layer for each object. I Would gladly put all text on one layer, and all containers on another layer if  could move them around..

 

I have to upgrade my laptop since it only has 4 gigs of ram, I know that, but I was just curious about the subject. Thank you.

Edited August 31, 2015 by trinsic

[pdnnoob]

I'm going to assume you meant 2.5 gig image file and not 25.

I just opened a new image of the same dimensions and it is only taking up about 118MB of RAM. Unless you have a large number of layers in your image, there is something wonky going on.

I recommend you consolidate a few layers

[Ego Eram Reputo]

Memory for an individual image being edited with paint.net can be calculated with this formula

 

(Width x Height x 4) x (Layers +2)     Ref: http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/8606-out-of-memory-to-loadedit-an-image-read-this-first/

 

Your image:  (5407 x 2085 x 4) x (30+2)

 

= 1.44gb with around 45mb for each additional layer (I used 30, you said there were more).

 

Yes paint.net 4 is heavily optimized to make efficient use of memory. You're pushing the limits to open such a large image with that many layers with only 4gb of ram.  Your options are to increase ram, accept the performance hit, break up the image into smaller units or lower the number of layers.  One way to lower the number of layers is to use one layer to host multiple objects which remain reasonably widely spaced. An example might be cities and towns on a map. They are not likely to overlap so combining on a lower number of layers might be possible, rather than using one layer for each element.

[Rick Brewster]

To answer the architectural question, Paint.NET is using tiles everywhere except in the allocation of the memory for layers (yeah, the one place where it REALLY needs to be tiles). The entire rendering system is tiled (and asynchronous!), but not the storage, in other words.

 

It'll be a pretty big jump to do that. I really want to, it would make so many things so much better.