Generating a large encrypted disk image???

Hi:

Disk Utility is great and I use it all the time to create encrypted disk images.

However, now I've run into a problem when trying to create large disk images (.dmg files) on an external drive. Small .dmg images work great, both encrypted and non-encrypted. However, when I try to create large (1 TB to 4 TB) disk images, either encrypted or non-encrypted, using APFS, I continually get this error after a long wait:

Is there a way to use Disk Utility to successfully create large encrypted disk images on an external drive?

If not, would a terminal command work better???

If not, is there a 3rd party utility that would successfully accomplish this?

Any other ideas?

Thank you very much!!!