: Saving Working Files as PSD or TIFF? I was reading a few articles about how people saved their working files and it got me thinking about my own method. I used to save everything as a PSD,

@Caterina889

People seem to have already answered pretty well, but the only situation in which I found it was absolutely better to use TIFF was when working across programs (specifically, for importing files into Sketchbook Pro for further editing). This also helps if you're working with other people in a production and they have different preferences in terms of their programs, or if you want to be able to work on something like a storyboard where you need to quickly flip between files.

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@Murray976

Any more a Photoshop saved TIFF with transparency is actually a dual format file - A Tiff Preview image + underlying PSD data. (The same way Illustrator files are actually .ai and .pdf in one file).

Note saving a flat tiff results in a standard tiff, no PSD editing capabilities. The difference is the transparency and layers within a tiff.

For general purposes it may not make a great deal of difference. Although the layered Tiff may be a bit larger in file size due to the storage of the additional Tiff preview along with the actual Photoshop editing data.

However.... where there could possibly be a problem regarding file reliability. When a file, any file, has a corruption issue, many applications (especially Adobe apps) will try and salvage as much data as it can from the format. Often dumping data which is seen as corrupt or superfluous.

If you save layered files as tiff.. you run a much greater risk of the Photoshop Editing data being dumped due an issue with the file itself. It will be seen as superfluous data which isn't mandatory for the tiff format. That could mean you lose editing capabilities by saving a file as a tiff. (This is the same reason I wouldn't ever save my .ai files as .pdf files -- the ai data runs a greater risk of being truncated.)

Of course, if you have a solid backup system this may not be a major issue. I, personally, have found a bad file.. gone to my back up only to realize the bad file was backed up as well. Leaving me to search backup archives or tertiary backups with the hopes the good file still exists in some backup somewhere.

For my money, a preview icon isn't worth the potential issues associated with file stability.

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@Heady304

Nowadays, .psd and .tif are pretty much interchangeable. Adobe's Help still recommends psd "To preserve all Photoshop features (layers, effects, masks, and so on), save a copy of your image in Photoshop format (PSD)", but I don't know what obscure situation would absolutely require a psd.

I still use .psd, but it's mostly out of habit. In the early versions of Photoshop, .psd was for editing and .tif was to output n image without destructive compression (ex: .jpg or .gif), as well as to be able to import it in other software (for example Quark XPress, long before InDesign). Then they added non-destructive compression to .tif files, and later on they added the possibility to preserve layers in TIFF files, although we still had to flatten out layers before sending it to the press. By that point we are at Photoshop version 6 or 7; fast forward a few years and a few versions later, Photoshop handles .tif just like .psd, and you can directly import a .psd in almost anything.

So I would say using .tif is fine, especially if it helps your workflow. If you do something with many layers, filters and modifications, or if you might change Photoshop versions within a project you might want to back up as .psd just to be sure.

Also, Adobe Bridge will show thumbnails psd files and is a great way to browse your files; it might be worth looking into. By the way, Mac OS natively displays thumbnails for them as well, but for some reason Windows still doesn't.

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@Goswami567

It depends what you want to do with the images.

If you need to preserve all Photoshop editing capabilities such as layers, editable text, layer effects, etc, then save as PSD.

If the image is for print, and won't require further editing, save as CMYK TIFF. Full Photoshop editing capabilities are not preserved in TIFFs, except for layers.

There are codecs available for Windows systems to show thumbnails for PSDs in Explorer. If you search google for "Windows PSD codec" you'll find them.

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