Inkscape users,

I have an Inkscape file that is about 4.5 megabytes in size. It is essentially an A4 size comic book page.

One layer contains the orginal scanned pencils, which were in PNG format. The next layer are flat colours, no gradients, just simple paths with colour fills.

The top layer is the inks, which were almost all created with the calligraphy pen. This seems to be where the problem is. Even just locking/unlocking the layer causes Inkscape to pause for many seconds, maybe 10 or so.

My computer is by no means the latest, but it should handle these file sizes alright. I use GIMP and Photoshop on larger file sizes without any noticeable slowdown. (My computer is a 2.8GHz dual processor, with 2 GB RAM, running Ubuntu 9.04).

Is it normal for a collection of paths created with the calligraphy pen to be this bulky and slow a system down?

I tried removing the original scan images to try and reduce the file size, but it has not helped.

Is there something I'm doing inefficiently or wrong, or is it just that complicated paths can't help but soak up lots of memory.

Any advice would be much appreciated.