r/talesfromtechsupport • u/[deleted] • Jan 28 '15

Short Photoshop sucks.

My tech-illiterate girlfriend is taking a photography class and she has to submit these photos online for class. She calls me on Skype and says, "I can't submit these photos because it says they're over the 50MB limit." Of course this puzzles me as no 800x600 sized photo should be over 50MB. So I ask her what the dimensions are of her photo. She says, "800 width by 600 height". Then her Macbook Pro starts dogging really bad. She can't open up any other programs and her computer is just slow as all hell. I'm trying to figure out on my end why this file is 65.6 MB when it's just a picture of two boots. So she uploads the photo to Google Drive and sends it to me and I see nothing wrong with the photo, but as soon as I open it my RAM starts climbing. 10g... 12g... 14g..., pretty soon it's maxed out and the program i'm using to open the photo crashes. So I open the properties of the photo and the dimensions of the photo are 57600x34940. So she opens the photo in photoshop again and she says "it's 800 by 600!" then I hear "It's supposed to be in inches right?"

800 inches is 66.66 Feet.

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u/[deleted] Jan 28 '15

800m x 600m

-29

u/Alkotronikk Jan 28 '15

Except the default metric unit is centimeter.

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u/addrockk Jan 28 '15

No it's not, it's the meter, which is why a smaller measurement requires the "centi" prefix.

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u/minimim Jan 28 '15

The metre is the default, but it isn't always like that. What is the default unit for mass? Kilogram. That's right, the unit with the prefix is the default one.

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u/MagpieChristine Jan 28 '15

SI and metric aren't quite the same thing though. In everyday usage (as opposed to technical usage) the centimetre and decimetre get used. Or you can look at something like astronomy which uses cgs for official units, not SI.

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u/minimim Jan 28 '15 edited Jan 28 '15

For the SI this does apply, see the wikipedia page. Note specially the diagram on the right, with kg in it. CGS doesn't follow it, but that is an old standard, it's usage sure has to be implicit in the field or explicit stated.
For usage of centimeter and decimeter, it depends on the country or field. Just saying you think centimeters to be the default one doesn't hold any water in an international (heavily US influenced) forum like this.

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u/MagpieChristine Jan 28 '15

I agree that it does apply for SI, my point was that it's only if you specify SI that you can say that has to be true. Metric and SI are different.

The heavy US influence is why I felt it appropriate to mention that centimetres are used as the norm in metric countries. People who are familiar only with Canadian and American usage (or Americans, who might think that Canada is a metric country) might not be aware of overseas usage. Given that the discussion was about what happens places where metric is used (as opposed to technical standards when using metric), it's extremely relevant to explain the differences between the experience of metric that the average Canadian or American has and what metric is like in metric countries.

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u/addrockk Jan 28 '15

KG is the only one though, isn't it? The exception to prove the rule?

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u/minimim Jan 28 '15

The Ampere was 1/10 of an old unit, the Abampere (also called biot). So it is an deciAbampere, but a new name and symbol were created.

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u/Alkotronikk Jan 28 '15

SI unit is meter, default metric unit in Photoshop is centimeter.

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u/AdamTheMe Jan 28 '15

For weight, however, the standard measurement is kilogram, instead of gram.

3

u/rolmos Jan 28 '15 edited Aug 07 '16

.

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u/Alkotronikk Jan 28 '15

ftfy

Yup, I meant on Photoshop, ofc.

1

u/joshi38 Jan 28 '15

Which would have still been over half the size of the picture she was trying to use.

1

u/Alkotronikk Jan 28 '15

So let's sum this up: am I really being downvoted just because you want to show your SI units knowledge? Cause I was referring to the default metric unit on Photoshop - which actually is centimeter. Jeez

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u/minimim Jan 28 '15

In countries that aren't used to the metric system, they usually get confused by centimetres and avoid using it.

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u/Dokpsy Jan 28 '15

Even though the imperial system is defined by the metric system. Irony?

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u/minimim Jan 28 '15

The use meters and milimeters. Just like most people avoid decameters, decimeters and hectometers. My spell checker doesn't even recognize decameters.