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Does PSD have any advantage over TIFF?

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
May 15, 2024
5 replies
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Hi guys. Considering TIFF format supports practically every Photoshop aspect, what's the purpose of saving in PSD format? Does it have any advantage over TIFF? Thanks.

Windows

Correct answer D Fosse

Take your pick. They both support anything you can do in Photoshop.

I started using PSD and have just continued. Now it's rapidly becoming moot, as my files are often too large for both, so that I need to use PSB anyway.

If you're into compression (I'm not) they use somewhat different algorithms, so you'd have to try, balancing file size against open/save times.

Stephen Marsh

Community Expert

The interesting thing about Photoshop's old runlength compression, is that it's directional based on the horizontal rows, so in certain mostly artificial cases such as gradients, simply rotating the same file 90° can significantly alter file size. Photographic imagery rarely provides such a perfect example as a synthetic gradient:

In this example, the PSD files used default compression and one was simply rotated 90°.

The TIFF versions used ZIP for the file with RLE layers in both cases. You can see that the RLE used by TIFF doesn't vary as much as the runlength compression format used by Photoshop. It's my understanding that the runlength compression used by Photoshop isn't the same as RLE used by TIFF and the differences in file sizes appear to back this up.

This is only mentioned for informative purposes, for 99.9% of images this shouldn't be a practical concern.

Conrad_C

Community Expert

For most purposes, TIFF is just as good, saves most if not all Photoshop features such as layers and effects, and offers more compression options.

One reason to use PSD is if you need maximum control over the Photoshop file from other apps. For example, InDesign and After Effects let you control layers in Photoshop files, but if you used TIFF, the layers aren’t accessible from those apps. In After Effects, it’s the difference between being able to animate individual layers in a single Photoshop document, and not being able to.

A

AppleAddict001

Known Participant

Don't know if this tread is closed or not but will ask my question anyway. Let's assume one is saving (from Photoshop) the exact same image with active Layers . Can anyone tell me which format (.PSD or .TIFF) would result in a larger file size? * As far as I know neither of these formats can be compressed when including active layers - correct me if I am wrong.

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Conrad_C

Community Expert

The answer to your question is one of those “it depends” answers, because whether PSD or TIFF is larger depends on the options you set for each. In short, TIFF can be smaller if you use one of the compression options. Uncompressed TIFF is as large as uncompressed PSD. Both use lossless compression*, so they can both preserve full quality and all layers, but that means neither can be as small as JPEG which is both lossy and throws out all layers.

We know Photoshop PSD and formats are compressed by default, because there is a setting in Photoshop Preferences / File Handling that lets you disable that compression; see the picture below. That option is off by default, which means PSD/PSB compression is on for everyone unless it’s specifically disabled here. Some people turn off PSD/PSB compression because they want the fastest possible PSD/PSB save times, but they have enough storage to put up with the larger uncompressed file sizes.

To finally answer your question, below is how it more or less works out for layered Photoshop documents, depending on the choices you make. I used a Photoshop document containing an RGB image from a digital camera, an adjustment layer, a vector graphics shape layer, and a type layer, which stay live and editable in all the variations below. Note that TIFF can preserve all Photoshop layer types.

You can’t have everything, so you have to decide whether you want the smallest file sizes or the fastest save times. And saving at 16 bits per channel is almost always about twice as large as 8 bits per channel for the same options.

The TIFF filenames may list two compression types, because in the TIFF options, you can choose from file compression options and layer compression options. So TIFF LZW RLE means LZW compression for the file and RLE for the layers.

The reason the last one, DSC0702 16bpc LZW RLE.tif, is larger than even the uncompressed ones is that LZW does work oddly with 16bpc images, sometimes making them larger than the original. If you’re going to compress 16bpc TIFF, you probably want to use ZIP compression.

JR Boulay

Community Expert

A TIFF file can be smaller because it allows compression.

A PSD file imported into InDesign allows you to manage the display of layers directly in InDesign, unlike TIFF.

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

Several Adobe apps handle PSD layers interactively. Definitely Premiere Pro, and I imagine also After Effects. It never occurred to me that TIFF files would not work in the same way as I have always used PSD and PSB but it figures. I have always thought of TIFF as something of an affectation, probably used by people who refer to their photos as Fine Art.

Stephen Marsh

Community Expert

Seeing that a file is PSD/PSB one knows that it is a master working file. Although TIFF may technically be a layered working file as well, it is also a final file format used in the print industry where it is often flattened. Therefore TIFF may be more ambiguous, does it contain layers or is it flat? Does the TIFF use lossy JPEG compression that may be inadvertently compounded with multiple open/saves?

PSD only supports 2GB sizes, while TIFF supports 4GB. PSB covers this and more.

D Fosse

Community Expert

Yes, Stephen's argument is a good one: TIFF is ambiguous. PSD is not.

D Fosse

Correct answer

Community Expert

Take your pick. They both support anything you can do in Photoshop.

I started using PSD and have just continued. Now it's rapidly becoming moot, as my files are often too large for both, so that I need to use PSB anyway.

If you're into compression (I'm not) they use somewhat different algorithms, so you'd have to try, balancing file size against open/save times.

F

Faby5FAEAuthor

Known Participant

Ok, so it's all about compression... and yes, for big files we need PSB.
Thank you.

Derek Cross

Community Expert

For distributing images I would choose uncompressed JPGs, they are significantly smaller than TIFs (useful for using in long photo-heavy InDesign documents), the quality of TIFs over JPGs is imperceptible for most uses and the format (unlike TIFs) can be used on websites and be sent to photoprint companies.

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