Bug Hunt - error exporting to .psd

I have difficulty in making my xara drawings available to my paint program.

my procedure is to export the drawing to a .psd file and open it with Painter X.

when my drawing is of a certain complexity (my current has 48 layers) it will not export. i get a weird unidentified file error and Xara hangs. have to use the Task Manager to stop it.

i am using XXP 4.0 on a AMD Turion 64 Dual Core w. 2G.

the work around is to manually convert every layer to bitmap and export (Sh-A, SH/CTRL C - Shift Convert - Shift B - deselect, select, delete)... tedious and if i have to go back and change something... well, gets worse.

i know there is nothing to be done, but... maybe next version.

geo.

I would recommend simplifying your layers. Maybe consolidate layers wherever possible.

If that is not possible or desirable, then you might try creating several duplicate files. Delete all but a selection of layers. Repeat this for the other duplicate files and export the next set of layers.

Then import the documents and rebuild the layers.

48 layers does sound very complex.

Also keep in mind that Xtreme cannot export most types of transparency. I know that Mix is acceptable. I am not sure about Bleach and Stained Glass. Check the Help files to see what other restrictions may apply.

Unless the file is private, It might be something that Charles and crew would like to take a look at. I don't if any of the testers had a chance to build a file that complex to test with.

Maybe John will chime in here and he might be interested in seeing why the file will not export.

I take it is saves just fine. What is the file size (Very large files do not email very well)?

Thanks m. Priester,

always glad to take advantage of your expertise.

yes, in an earlier version, i DID combine several layers and it seemed to work. But... I really DO need to be able to select individual layers individually in Painter, so...

but... things seem to be getting more complicated. i tried exporting only 5 (visible) layers. same thing. tried export 1 layer. same thing.

maybe my installation is bolloxed? open new file, create random shape, exports fine. two layers, one hidden one shown, export shown works fine.

SOMEthing is wrong with my composite... and i have no idea what. no object transparancies, btw. oh... that gives me an idea... MUCH too much complication? break everything and export?

gonna go try that.

geo.

soo... dunno. gonna keep diddling with it.

Hi Geo - nice to hear from you again :)

one thing that might help is to make each layer a bitmap copy in a duplicate file before you export, as you are exporting to psd and painter, which are raster anyway

I can see this producing one very large file though, with 48 layers, so you may still need to split the export as Gary suggests, and put them back together within painter

yeah... well... on the assumption that the file itself was corrupted in some way (i had different problems exporting to other formats, including PDF) i rebuilt the file from it's constituent parts. no good.

i will find this bug.... and let you know what i find.

geo.

To Steve's point. You could try exporting your document as a PNG file with the option to Export Each Layer to a File of Its Own.

This accomplishes the same thing of exporting each layer as a bitmap.

Gary

it would appear that it is merely the SIZE of the rastered layers that causes the dump. that the file it is failing to write to is nameless suggests that it is a scratch file. i increased the amount of memory xara allocates to layer mgt and increased the size of windows v-mem and got an increase in the time it runs before dumping. it will export as many as 5 layers at a time, but your solution is probably best. i do this often, but the number of layers and the size of the rastered layers in this project is substantially greater (24x18 inches)... thus the problem

would be nice, seeing as this is likely to become more of a problem as Xara is used increasingly to prep and manage such images and Xara is shifting some degree of focus to raster images, that they allow for NOT attempting to manage all layers in MEM.

anyway, thanks for the help. will post the results when the project is done.

geo.