Moonrise & Aurora

by Jakub

submit your photo


Picture of the Week Themes
Suggest and vote on themes

Please participate in Meta
and help us grow.

Tell me more ×
Photography Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for professional, enthusiast and amateur photographers. It's 100% free, no registration required.

After editing/retouching a photo in Photoshop, if I want to store that file long term with the edits, what are the advantages/disadvantages of storing it in TIFF vs. PSD format?

There's a somewhat-related question that debates storing RAW vs. TIFF, but assuming I've decided I want to store the edited file (not the RAW), that doesn't address TIFF vs. PSD.

share|improve this question

6 Answers

The short answer is: save it as a TIFF.

PSD may once have been considered the more "native"/modern Photoshop format, but no longer. Jeff Schewe (the Photoshop Guru's Guru) advised way back in August 2007 on the Luminous Landscape forums that choosing TIFF over PSD was his strong recommendation. I quote:

Look, I'll make it REAL simple...

TIFF = Good
PSD = Bad

Here's some more detail from that forum posting, but I encourage you to follow the link and read the rest of it:

PSD is now a bastardized file format that is NOT a good idea to use. Even the Photoshop engineers will tell you that PSD is no longer the Photoshop "native" file format. It has no advantages and many disadvantages over TIFF.
TIFF is publicly documented, PSD is not. That makes TIFF a preferred file format for the long term conservation of digital files.
And, let me be blunt, anybody who thinks PSD is "better" than TIFF is ignorant of the facts. If Adobe would let them, the Photoshop engineers would tell you to quit using PSD.

share|improve this answer
show 1 more comment

TIFF is more widely supported. Many programs don't deal with PSD because the format is very complicated. TIFF on the other hand is like a "standard" image format along with JPEG and PNG.

Both TIFF and PSD can preserver layers information. Both of them can handle 16 and 32 bit image. However PSD can contain much more than that. Since it is the native format of Photoshop, it can have many photo-editing metadata like layer styles, layer folders, snapshots, custom channels, and even editing histories (though histories may make the file really big).

Personally I'll just save TIFF, because it's not likely that I'll have, say, a hundred layers, and a complex layer structure. But if I'm designing, I probably want to have as much metadata as I want, and also tons of layer styles, which leaves me no choice but PSD.

EDIT: according to @Conor Boyd and @ysap etc., TIFF can actually contain as much information as PSD does. So ya, go with TIFF. However, note that TIFF's being a general purpose image format does not mean that every image viewer can read all the information stored in any TIFF image. A "baseline" TIFF reader, for example, may only render the first layer in the image. This behavior is allowed by the TIFF standard.

share|improve this answer

If the picture has been edited in Photoshop then I would store it as PSD since it is the Photoshop native format. This was you can always go back to the picture and alter any previous changes/layers without any trouble.

share|improve this answer

There are several misconceptions here. Let me clear them up:

1. TIFF is open, PSD is closed.

False. While PSD is proprietary format, it is documented and a lot of competing products are using it.

2. TIFF is easy to read, so many apps read it. PSD is complex.

False. TIFF is a container format. Both TIFF and PSD contain a flattened version of the whole document. That is why a lot of simple apps read both formats easily. TIFF can contain a lot of different information, but that does not mean that it is easier for an app to read and compose it than a PSD file.

share|improve this answer

I would still store the RAW file, this is essentially your negative. Advances come out in Adobe's technology which might allow you to re-process and old RAW file and produce an image you're happier with (recent improvements in noise reduction being an example).

Anyway, to your question - I think this might be a personal preference thing. I like to store the RAW and the PSD as I find it more convenient for future use and access.

share|improve this answer

TIFF supports layers.

PSD supports every single feature of Photoshop.

If you do heavy editing and image compositions in Photoshop, don't be surprised when you find that TIFF will not keep your layer styles, smart layers or any of the hundreds of features Photoshop has.

PSD is certainly more complex than TIFF, exactly because it keeps all the original data from Photoshop. In the same sense JPEG is simpler than TIFF.

PSD files by default contain a composite image in them, so many simple apps can display a PSD file without decoding the complex format.

share|improve this answer

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.
{"cc_re__cc_re__cc_by_sa_3_0": ["f=\"http://area51.stackexchange.com\" title=\"proposing new sites in the Stack Exchange network\">Area 51</a></li>\r\n                        <li><a href=\"http://careers.stackoverflow.com\">Stack Overflow Careers</a></li>\r\n                    \r\n                </ol>\r\n            </td>\r\n    </tr>\r\n</table>\r\n                </div>\r\n            </div>\r\n\r\n            <div id=\"copyright\">\r\n                site design / logo &copy; 2013 stack exchange inc; \r\n                user contributions licensed under <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/\" rel=\"license\">cc-wiki</a> \r\n                with <a href=\"http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/06/attribution-required/\" rel=\"license\">attribution required</a>\r\n            </div>\r\n            <div id=\"footer-flair\">\r\n                <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/\" class=\"cc-wiki-link\"></a>\r\n            </div>\r\n            <div id=\"svnrev\">\r\n                rev 2013.5.17.690\r\n            </div>\r\n            \r\n        </div>\r\n    </div>\r\n    <noscript>\r\n        <div id=\"noscript-warning\"", "\r\n</table>\r\n                </div>\r\n            </div>\r\n\r\n            <div id=\"copyright\">\r\n                site design / logo &copy; 2013 stack exchange inc; \r\n                user contributions licensed under <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/\" rel=\"license\">cc-wiki</a> \r\n                with <a href=\"http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/06/attribution-required/\" rel=\"license\">attribution required</a>\r\n            </div>\r\n            <div id=\"footer-flair\">\r\n                <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/\" class=\"cc-wiki-link\"></a>\r\n            </div>\r\n            <div id=\"svnrev\">\r\n                rev 2013.5.17.690\r\n            </div>\r\n            \r\n        </div>\r\n    </div>\r\n    <noscript>\r\n        <div id=\"noscript-warning\">Photography Stack Exchange works best with JavaScript enabled<img src=\"http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-c1rF4kxgLUzNc.gif\" alt=\"\" class=\"dno\"></div>\r\n    </noscript>\r\n    <script type=\"text/javascript\">var _gaq=_gaq||[];_gaq.push(['_setAccount','UA-5620270-24']);\r\n        _gaq.push(['_setDom"], "copyright__copyright__copyright": ["certainly more complex than TIFF, exactly because it keeps all the original data from Photoshop. In the same sense JPEG is simpler than TIFF.\n\nPSD files by default contain a composite image in them, so many simple apps can display a PSD file without decoding the complex format.\n\nshare|improve this answer\n\nYour Answer\n\n\u00a0\ndiscard\n\nBy posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.\n\nNot the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question."]}