How to open a PSD file. The best programs for reading and editing: do without Photoshop psd extension than open

The PSD format is created using the well-known graphics editor Adobe Photoshop. Therefore, if there is such a program on board your computer, then the issue of opening PSD files can be considered resolved - this format opens and is best used in it.

Licensed versions of Adobe Photoshop in Russia cost from 28,500 rubles.

However, the licensed version of Adobe Photoshop is very expensive, and obtaining a pirated program will not be considered in this article.

Free ways to open psd file

What should those people who, for some reason, cannot use the Adobe Photoshop editor, do? Try to find analogs that can also open the coveted format. Fortunately, nowadays there are enough of them free.

There are also some paid programs that allow you to open the PSD format, but they cost about the same as Adobe Photoshop, and they do not support all the functions of the PSD format.

1. Graphic editor GIMP. The program is essentially a free analogue of Adobe Photoshop. The project is being developed by a group of enthusiastic developers and distributed completely, and even open source (this means that any person versed in programming can make some additions and new functions to the program, if he considers it necessary). GIMP allows you to work with raster and partially even with vector graphics.

2. Lightweight graphics editor Paint.NET in conjunction with the plugin Paint.NET PSD Plugin. Both the program and the plugin are distributed completely free of charge. Compared to Adobe Photoshop, Paint.NET is a much less complex application, but has features that are of great interest to a number of users. Paint.NET, although it comes with closed source code (you cannot make changes to it), is an extensible graphics editor. That is, the functionality of this program can be significantly expanded, it is enough to connect special plugins to it.

3. Online service Pixlr.com. It is located on the site by its appropriate name. The site resembles the design of Adobe Photoshop, but unlike the latter, it is based on Flash technology. The service allows you to work only with raster graphics. It is possible to switch to full screen mode, there is support for the Russian language.

4. PSD viewer. A very simple editor. The program is intended mainly for viewing Adobe Potoshop documents, but there is also the possibility of easy editing: image rotation, resizing, scaling and some others. Editing is done without loss of quality.

These programs and services will help the reader to open and use files with many popular extensions. Some of them provide the ability to work with vector graphics as well. Some of the above support even very rare extensions.

The image file extension is ".PSD". It is an image file format that is native to the very famous Adobe Photoshop software. While most people tend to use JPEG, BMP, or PNG files for their day to day tasks, a PSD file can involve a lot more than just storing an image file. PSD file (Photoshop Document) can store a huge amount of additional information about the image, such as layers, masks , color profiles, transparency, text, support for storing multiple images, objects, filters, vector paths and shapes, and much more.

PSD files are typically high quality reference images, such as those used in website templates or for desktop publishing. They also do not lose in image quality, 100% image quality is maintained at all times, where something like JPEG will gradually lose image quality after each save.

PSD files have a maximum height and width of 30,000 pixels and a maximum size of 2 GB.

A similar format for PSD is PSB (Adobe Photoshop Large Document File), which supports larger images, up to 300,000 pixels, and file sizes up to 4 exabytes (4 billion GB).

How to open a PSD file

The PSD file extension are image file types that are created with the most commonly used professional image editing software Adobe Photoshop. The problem is that PSD is not an open format. While PNG, JPG and BMP can be opened in almost every image editor, PSD is special - and needs special support.

How to open a PSD file on Windows

IrfanView is a small, free viewer, image converter that can easily open “PSD files”.

XnView is a free image viewer that supports about 50 graphic and multimedia formats, including Adobe Photoshop.

GIMP - This is an incredibly popular and completely free photo editing program that will open PSD files. You can also use GIMP to edit PSD files, but since it has problems recognizing complex layers and advanced features, you may run into problems.

Adobe Photoshop - since Photoshop saves the image with this ".psd" extension, you can use it to open this file for viewing and editing.

How to open a PSD file in Linux

How to open a PSD file on MacOS

GIMP for GNU Image Manipulation is a free image retouching tool that supports the "PSD extension" by default.

Adobe Photoshop - since Photoshop saves the image with this “.psd” extension, you can use it to open this file for viewing and editing.

Apple Preview, bundled with macOS, should be able to open PSD files by default. An easy-to-use PSD file viewer application will allow you to freely open and view a picture of the PSD file, but you will not be able to edit the PSD file.

A file with the PSD extension is an Adobe Photoshop document; it is an image file created specially by the Adobe Photoshop program; famous professional image editing software. If you want to open or modify a psd image file without purchasing or installing Adobe Photoshop software. Here are some tips and tricks that will surely help you. open PSD without Adobe Photoshop.

The first thing I can advise you is to try opening the file by simply double-clicking on it. Your computer will try to figure out what types of applications can open the file. If an error pops up on the screen or nothing happens at all, then there are no programs that read the PSD file on the computer.

How can you open this file?

Here is the second way, a few tools to help you open this file. These are free programs to download and install them completely free of charge, I want to say in advance that there will be links to all programs, so you don't need to look for them and bother.

Paint.Net: This is an amazing free photo editor program that makes editing pictures and photos faster and easier. To open and edit a psd file, you need to install the additional Paint.net tool.

IrfanView: free, small and terribly simple tool, it opens PSD files in no time, effortlessly, simply and without Photoshop.

Gimp: is a very popular and completely free photo tool that can create and edit files, it can easily open this file. You can use GIMP to edit PSD files, but since it cannot recognize complex layers and possibly other properties that could be used in Photoshop already in the created file, you may have problems.

I also recommend using a simple notepad installed on your PC by default or any other text editor that can edit the PSD file too. Many files are text documents, they are available regardless of the file extension, a text editor may be able to display the contents of the file. It may or may not be related to the PSD file, but it's worth a try.

How to open files in the programs above:

Load the PSD file into the installed program, select "File", then "Open". Hope you now know how can I open a psd file... Hope it helped you;).

The PSD Raster image file format

PSD files enable graphic designers as well as other users to edit images using layers. Layers make it easy to add and remove elements, as well as add and remove various filters, effects, transparencies and, in principle, change the image. PSD files can be opened with different versions of Photoshop. Moreover, such files can be saved in other formats (PNG, JPEG, GIF, etc.) for further loading, sending or saving. After converting the PSD file to another format, all layers become one layer. If you save the file with the PSD extension, the layers will be saved. They can be viewed and edited. Such files are very often used in the case of draft documents, rather than ready-made publications or images.

Technical details of PSD files

Photoshop PSD files save the image and at the same time allow you to use a set of editing tools in Adobe Photoshop. Some of these tools include the following: masks, transparencies, halftone blending, gradients, color balancing, blending, crop paths, and more. PSB files are similar to PSD files, they cannot contain images whose height and width are greater than 300,000 pixels, and the length is over 4 exabytes. At the same time, separate layers are saved in such files, and not the whole image. These proprietary file types are larger and serve as working documents for graphic design projects. Converting from PSD to other image formats allows you to get the final compressed image.

More information about the PSD file format

What if you need to open a PSD file and you just don't have Photoshop installed? Let's look at seven ways to do this.

The problem is that the PSD format is not open, as is the case with PNG, JPG or BMP. It was developed by Adobe as a graphics editing project. By opening such a file, you can always continue editing from where you left off earlier. However, if you do not want to pay for a subscription to Adobe applications, then you have to look for an alternative. In functionality, the free counterparts will be noticeably inferior to the Photoshop monster, moreover, some will only be able to open the PSD file for viewing. However, this is often enough.

Gimp

The first free app to try for opening a PSD file is GIMP. And not only because the rich functionality of this graphics editor is close to Photoshop and even can, but rather due to its availability on all platforms, be it Windows, Mac or Linux. Once you familiarize yourself with the application, you can then use it on other devices.

No additional plugins or extensions are required to open a PSD file in the GIMP application. Just use the "File - Open" menu, select the PSD file and click "Open".

The project will open not just as a static picture. The available layers will be displayed, on which you can perform certain operations. However, it should be remembered that if you make changes and then save the file, in the future it may have problems opening in native Photoshop. So you can work with the file, but you shouldn't make edits in this way for a designer who uses software from Adobe.

The free graphics editor Gimp, if desired, can be very similar to Photoshop and even inherit its hotcases.

Paint.NET

Much more advanced graphics editor than standard Microsoft Paint, and at the same time not as frightening with an abundance of functionality as GIMP or Photoshop. Simple and functional.

However, to open PSD files for the Paint.NET application, you need to install a special plugin. Download the plugin content, open the archive and copy the PhotoShop.dll library to the directory with the installed editor (most often C: / Program Files / paint.net), and more specifically to the FileTypes subdirectory. After that, launch the application itself.

If you've done everything correctly, then the PSD files should open smoothly in Paint.NET. Like GIMP, the layers of the project will be displayed, however Paint.NET does not support all the features of Photoshop, so some layers may not be available or even give errors when opening the file.

Photopea Online Editor

If you have not heard about Photopea before, then the project will be a pleasant discovery for you. Not the most famous online editor, of course, is inferior in functionality to Photoshop and GIMP, however, it is difficult to expect something similar from browser editors in principle. However, Photopea is really worth seeing.

When you open the site of the online editor, it is not even immediately believed that this is not a separate application. There is a familiar menu through which you can open files from your computer. Therefore, click "File - Open" and specify the path to the PSD file.

Photopea works successfully with individual layers, which is very cool for an online editor. Thus, it becomes possible to edit PSD files wherever you are - from any computer.

XnView

The free picture organizer allows you to view and organize your pictures in various ways. It can also be used for basic editing - applying filters, effects, changing the position of the picture, and so on.

XnView is capable of handling over 500 formats and exporting to 70 different formats. Therefore, the application will be useful not only for viewing images, but also for converting them.

During installation, the application will offer three options - minimal, standard and advanced. At the same time, the minimum is quite enough to open PSD files, so there is no need to clutter up the disk with the extended version. And yes - you don't need to install any additional extensions or plugins either.

After buying a new computer or laptop, the question invariably arises of which programs to install on it in the first place.

IrfanView

Another image browser that also works as a converter. IrfanView does not support as many formats as XnView, but it does work with the most common ones. Isn't that what we wanted?

IrfanView easily opens PSD files. Yes, he cannot edit them, but converting to another format is easy.

It is convenient to use this application as your default photo browser. Most likely, it will never disappoint you, unlike the standard Windows application. IrfanView does not take up much space and is not resource intensive.

Google drive

It's a little strange to use Google's cloud service as a file browser, but it is quite capable of opening a wide variety of formats. In particular, you can view the content of the PSD file uploaded to the online Disk.

Go2Convert

The latter method will not allow you to either open or even edit a PSD file, but it can easily convert this format to a more widespread one. If you just need a PNG or JPG format as output, then you do not need to install any application.

Just visit the Go2Convert website, upload your PSD project to it and select the format in which you want to get the image. You can also resize it and give it additional compression. Simple and straightforward. Nothing extra.