Explain this to me, please. A storage space question

[amabedesign]

I have a 17-inch, late 2011 model MacBook Pro running OSX 10.8.2; 2.5 GHz Intel Core i7. Not sure if all of that was necessary but I tried.
Today, I was exporting a PSD file from illustrator into photoshop, and Illustrator crashed with the message that my drive was full and that I needed to free up disk space. So, I did.
I removed a lot of files that I didn't need, applications that I never use, backed up music and photos - to no avail. It now says I have less storage space than before I started. However, it also says in another window that I have more space than before. I'm confused and I'm posting images below.
Please help!

 

[GGJstudios]

I removed a lot of files that I didn't need, applications that I never use, backed up music and photos - to no avail.

Did you empty the Trash? Restart your Mac?

If you're wondering what "Other" category in the Lion/ML storage tab is about, this may help explain:

What is this "Other" in the storage tab? What is eating my space​

For space issues not explained by the above, there are a few things you can try, some of which may or may not apply:

• Begin by restarting your computer as a first step. This sometimes resolves issues.
  
  
• For Time Machine users on notebooks running Lion or later, space may be consumed by Time Machine local snapshots, which can be disabled.
  
  OS X: About Time Machine's "local snapshots" on portable Macs​
  
  
• Check to see if some of the space is being used by your sleepimage file.
  
  
• Check the System Memory tab in Activity Monitor to check page outs and swap used. If swap used is significant, restart your computer and track that value under your normal workload. If you have significant page outs under normal use, you could benefit from more RAM.
  
  
• Search with Finder to see if the space is being consumed by a very large file or several large files. Adjust the 50GB in the illustration to whatever size you deem appropriate.
  
  
• Use OmniDiskSweeper, JDisk Report, Disk Inventory X, DaisyDisk or GrandPerspective to see how space is being used on your drive. Some of these apps may show more detail than others, so try several.
  
  
• Check your drive with Disk Utility: Using Disk Utility to verify or repair disks
  
  
• Try re-indexing your drive: Spotlight: How to re-index folders or volumes

Here are a few resolutions found by others with the same question:

• Encrypted drive
• Time Machine backup files and needed disk repair
• App filling log file
• App or file was 89GB
• Drive needed to be re-indexed
• Time Machine backup file
• Large app cache file
• Garageband files and video podcasts
• Oversized email being duplicated
• Another email issue

Freeing up space in Mac OS X

How OS X and iOS report storage capacity

 

[Brian Y]

Finder doesn't include "Local Backups" in your used space - since they're deleted automatically if you need to fill the drive.

59.79 (Finder) - 37.38 (Local Backups) = 22.41 (Actual free space).

You can disable them by running the following in Terminal:

sudo tmutil disablelocal

 

[amabedesign]

thanks for your fast reply.

I empty my trash every time I put something in it (OCD, I know.)

Here's what I did:

Restarted.
Backed up about 6GB of files (mainly Illustrator files I do not need now) to my external hard drive.
Backed up about 14GB of photos to external.

Placed the aforementioned (now backed up) files into the trash, deleted.

Restarted.

Same issue.

Removed more extraneous files.
Restarted.

Same issue.

The message I'm getting is that my "startup disk is full."

----------

Finder doesn't include "Local Backups" in your used space - since they're deleted automatically if you need to fill the drive.

59.79 (Finder) - 37.38 (Local Backups) = 22.41 (Actual free space).

You can disable them by running the following in Terminal:

sudo tmutil disablelocal

okay this makes sense now! Thank you!

Still having the same problem though.