Warning: That watercolor-style brush pack I downloaded wrecked my file size

I was so excited to use this new brush set for my digital paintings last month. I tried it out on a meadow scene and my file jumped from 50 MB to over 300 MB in a few minutes. Turns out each brush stroke was saving a ton of extra layers I didn't see. I had to scrap the piece and start over with a different brush pack that was more optimized. Has anyone else run into brush packs that bloat their files like crazy?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_jake23d ago

300 MB? That's not a brush pack, that's a digital hoarding situation. I call those "the hard drive destroyers" because they'll eat your storage faster than a toddler eats goldfish crackers. I grabbed one of those "watercolor dreams" packs last year and my poor laptop sounded like it was about to launch into orbit while rendering a simple leaf. The worst part is you don't realize it until you've already got ten layers of happy little accidents and it's too late. I literally had to nuke my file and start over with a basic round brush and some opacity tricks. Lesson learned - if the brush preview looks too good to be true, it probably saves a thousand hidden pixels per stroke.

kaib1823d ago

Totally feel your pain. Had the exact same thing happen with a "soft pastel" set that promised buttery blends. I was painting a portrait and my file ballooned to 400 mb because it was secretly saving every single brush dab as its own layer or texture or something. It made my whole system lag so bad I couldn't even undo a mistake without a coffee break. Had to just close the file and walk away for a bit, it was so frustrating.