Im gonna build earth for som work Im gonna do for a company.
right now i got the bump map pic of the earth, an thats 5 mb jpg file, and when I try to use it, its crashes blender, tryed to convert it to tga ( 54 mb tga file ) that works, dont crash blender, but cant see the texture, and am gonna use the 500mtrX500mtr pr pixel scale from Nasa, aint finish downloading it yet, but wanna know how I can use those big files in blender without crashing blender, if any one know this an can help ill be happy 
( kinda besy so if there is a topic about it, sorry dont have much time to search 
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and my commer spec:
2,2 ghz 64 bit
1 gb ram
100 gb hdd
radeon x700 128 mb ram
Windows xp home sp2 (ya i know, gonna get the Linux gentoo soon )
Ok… first things first, my experience with any operating system is that if you run out of memory… your done.
Having said that TGA files seem to work best for me.
Really though you haven’t mentioned which way you are trying to apply the texture to the object. Are you UV mapping or just applying it strait??
just applying it strait, for the first, and tga just dont show in the texture box ether, and seems to go with a 54 mb file but not a 5 mb file, cant se the prob with memory, know there at least 600 mb of free ram when im using blender alone
You should make sure that your TGA file is raw. That is, you haven’t adjusted the resolution. I don’t know what you are using to create the TGA, but I am assuming that is the prob. Are you using PhotoShop?
Great app, if so but make sure you are saving full resolution - full color, blender likes that best. Yes big file, but the reason no one cares is because that is obvioulsy the best quality…
Using GIMP, hmm shall try that when I get Home from work, shall report back asap if it works… cant wait 
dos the same job again, but now it works in Yafray, so the problem is solved, (kinda) but I can use the texture now so thanks deathguppie