Yesterday I wrote an article detailing working with 16K resolution images in CS4 on an ’03 G5, and wanted to do a quick follow-up. As it turns out, the Mac can also handle 32K images! This is a whopping resolution of 30720 x 17280. To put it into appropriate perspective:

“According to scientist and photographer Roger M. N Clark, this resolution is around the theoretical maximum resolution of the human eye, assuming 20/20 vision, at 576 Megapixels.” (Wikipedia, 32K resolution, 7/15/2025, URL)
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How the Mac behaves

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Takes a minute to save and slightly less to open, but it works. When you go above 30,000 pixels across for images, you’re more limited in the file formats you can save in, but the computer doesn’t crash.

You’ll need the Memory setting turned all the way up in Photoshop. At these sizes (32K), a simple gradient takes up 1.48 GB of storage space!
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In Conclusion

What started as a bit of curiosity into how far Photoshop can be pushed on this G5, turned out to be a fascinating discovery. I didn’t think this computer could actually do it, but it did! Despite being an Apple device from decades ago, it still has tricks up it’s plastic side panel door.