Out of Memory Problems

Here are some general tips to work around "Out of Memory" problems in Shape Collage:
  • Save the collage as a PSD file
  • Don't use a background photo
  • Disable multithreading in the options
  • Reduce the collage size
  • Increase the memory usage of Shape Collage (see below)

Increase Memory Usage of Shape Collage

To increase the available memory for Shape Collage, follow the appropriate instructions for your operating system.
Warning: if you increase the memory too high, Shape Collage may not run

Windows

  1. Go to the program installation directory (C:\Program Files\Shape Collage\ or C:\ProgramFiles (x86)\Shape Collage\)
  2. Open the "ShapeCollage.l4j.ini" file in a text editor (eg. Notepad)
  3. Increase the memory usage by changing the text "-Xmx512m" to "-Xmx1024m" or higher

    Tip: If, when you try to save the file, Windows tells you that you don't have sufficient permissions to do so, then do the following:

    Click Start, search for "Notepad", right-click, and select "Run as Administrator". This should launch notepad with elevated privileges. Now, open the ShapeCollage.l4j file from the File menu, edit the file, and save.

Mac OS X

  1. Find the Shape Collage application (typically in your Applications directory)
  2. Right-click and choose "Show Package Contents"
  3. Go to the "Contents" folder
  4. Open the "Info.plist" file in a text editor (eg. TextEdit)
  5. Look for the line: <string>-Xmx1024m -Dapple.awt.graphics.UseQuartz=true</string>
  6. Increase the memory usage by changing the text "-Xmx1024m" to "-Xmx2048m" or higher

Linux

  1. Edit the "Shape Collage" shell script file in the "Shape Collage" directory
  2. Look for the line: JAV_ARGS="-Xmx1024m"
  3. Increase the memory usage by changing the text "-Xmx1024m" to "-Xmx2048m" or higher