[magick-users] large image and ram

[jcroux at olopi.com]

Hello,

I am trying to process a jpg that is 6150x8888. On my Centos 5.0 server
with 540MB of RAM, I am experiencing significant overload; top shows
number for the load Average well above 1 at times.
The processing of the image involves somwething like that:
convert -strip -resize $sizes -level 0,100%,$gamma -rotate $orientation
-quality $quality $src $dest

I read at http://imagemagick.sourceforge.net/http/www/FAQ.html
that this images would require 546,612,000 bytes that is pretty much more
than I have available (especially since RAM may already be used by other
application).
My questions are:
1. I assumed a quantum depth of 16 but I am not sure how I can check that
2. Do I have other alternatives than adding RAM to my server?
3. Would a rewrite using the C+ API instead of the command line (through
PHP exec) improve things?

Thanks