ValueError: Image size of 1440x88500 pixels is too large. It must be less than 2^16 in each direction.

[YubinXie]

I tried to generate a jpg report with many items and it is very long. Then I got an image size issue. Any idea that how to increase this limit?

Bug report

Bug summary

ValueError: Image size of 1440x88500 pixels is too large. It must be less than 2^16 in each direction.

Actual outcome

Error.

Expected outcome

A larger image.

Matplotlib version

• Operating system: Mac OS

• Matplotlib version: 2.2。3

• Matplotlib backend (print(matplotlib.get_backend())):module://ipykernel.pylab.backend_inline

• Python version: 3.7

• Jupyter version (if applicable): jupyter-notebook : 6.0.2
  qtconsole : not installed
  ipython : 7.10.2
  ipykernel : 5.1.3
  jupyter client : 5.3.4
  jupyter lab : not installed
  nbconvert : 5.6.1
  ipywidgets : 7.5.1
  nbformat : 4.4.0
  traitlets : 4.3.3

[timhoffm]

The maximum size of JPG is 65.535 pixels in each direction. This is a file format limit and there is no way of increasing.

General hint: I don't know what you're trying to achieve but such large files image files are usually problematic. Consider splitting up in multiple files or using other technologies such as multi-page pdfs. Note also that JPG is optimized for pictures. It's compression will generate artifacts for sharp edges like lines and texts. It's thus almost never a good choice to save matplotlib to JPG.

[YubinXie]

Got it. I try to generate a report where i compare multiple images side by side. I choose the jpg file as it is smaller. Thank you for your explanation! I will try to think about other solution.

[luccachiang]

The maximum size of JPG is 65.535 pixels in each direction. This is a file format limit and there is no way of increasing.

General hint: I don't know what you're trying to achieve but such large files image files are usually problematic. Consider splitting up in multiple files or using other technologies such as multi-page pdfs. Note also that JPG is optimized for pictures. It's compression will generate artifacts for sharp edges like lines and texts. It's thus almost never a good choice to save matplotlib to JPG.

Why did I reproduce this error when I forgot to write the extension of the file name, for example, when I mistakenly wrote plt.savefig('a/test') instead of plt.savefig('a/test.pdf') as I wanted? Got the error: ValueError: Image size of 184000x56000 pixels is too large. It must be less than 2^16 in each direction.

[rcomer]

@Lucca-cherries please see the fname description in the savefig documentation. This describes the default file format.
https://matplotlib.org/stable/api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.savefig.html#matplotlib.pyplot.savefig