Known Participant

Question

How can I disable the image preview on PSDs?

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
June 22, 2019
8 replies
10551 views

Hi Folks,

I'm trying to disable the image preview on PSDs, but it doesn't work.

More and more these days I reduce PSD file sizes with a white layer at the top when I save. That shaves huge amounts off the file size. Lie 115MB down to 75MB!

I tried disabling image preview in settings but it has no effect at all.

Hoping someone can help

John

creativeadvantech

Inspiring

When I go to image size and try to resample down the image from 3.5GB to 60MB, the "preparing to build preview" and color spinning wheel appears. How do I turn off the preview in "Image>Image Size" so maybe spinning wheels won't appear?

KillerRabbit

Known Participant

Yep dealing with that right now. Never been an issue before.

bobbybowden

Participant

I hate when people give half information.... where is "preferences"??

D Fosse

Community Expert

Have you looked in the menu? Edit > Preferences.

T

Test Screen Name

Legend

" it's hard to see how the saving in a compressed white composite layer can outweigh the size of an extra layer." I did some tests a while back, and my recollection is that a monochrome layer adds almost nothing to file size.

J

johnivanwhiteAuthor

Known Participant

Well, it's all reached a level of strangeness now which makes all of our discussion here even more difficult. I'm now finding that a PSD is saving at 116MB instead of 164MB no matter what I do in terms of settings or layers. Even a flat yellow top layer set to soft-light and set to be not visible is showing in the previews. Absolutely bizarre!

To make things even weirder, some PSDs from a couple of years ago had no preview in the Mac finder, and looked white, even though I had no white layer in the top of them!

I updated Photoshop yesterday, but I might uninstall it, delete the preferences file, and re-install and see what happens.

I think we've all ended up talking at cross-purposes here, understandably, and these latest Photoshop behaviours today, are complicating it still further.

J

johnivanwhiteAuthor

Known Participant

It's funny, I've been using Photoshop for years and I forgot all about this checkbox in the save dialog box (screenshot)

It has no effect whatsoever. I'm going to check for a Photoshop update now.

John

Jeff Arola

Community Expert

I believe on macOS/OS X, Finder automatically creates previews of flattened psds or psds saved with

Maximize Compatibility (saves flattened copy in addition to the layers).

Of course if differs on lots of factors like the size, whether there are alpha channels, the version of photoshop, bugs in the os, etc.

Windows doesn't preview psd files as a general rule unless one installs a third party codec or has an old version

of photoshop (cs3 and older) that included the Psicon.dll file that generated psd previews.

T

Test Screen Name

Legend

I can see why, technically, adding a white layer could reduce the size of a PSD. Note that the white layer needs to be in FRONT and obscure the picture (i.e. so it must be removed to continue working!)

1. A normal PSD contains a raster image of each layer, and of the composite view (except where there is only one layer).

2. These images are compressed.

3. Clearly a white image will compress to almost nothing. So adding a white layer won't much increase the overall size of the layer images.

4. If the composite is now white, it will now compress to next to nothing. So the image may well get smaller, if it started with more than one layer.

These are not generally called previews, a preview is something else, so there has been a lot of talking at cross purposes.

The reason for the composite image is for compatibility with older/simpler software that can't read and process Photoshop layers.

So, if you turn off the composite image, some software (perhaps including Finder) will no longer preview PSDs. So it isn't a preview, but it ENABLES previews.

The "maximize compatibility" save option controls a number of things, one of which is the composite image.

J

johnivanwhiteAuthor

Known Participant

There's really something wrong here.

It's telling that when i saved the PSD, I wasn't 'asked' if I wanted to "Maximise PSD and PSB compatibility despite setting it to do so.

Maybe I need to delete my preferences file and set it up again from fresh?

D Fosse

Community Expert

There is no way adding a layer can reduce file size, white or not. It can only add to the file size, all else being equal. Which it can't be in your case.

As for file sizes in general, I usually say that if that's a concern, you're in the wrong business. If you're working with image files, prepare for massive storage space.

J

johnivanwhiteAuthor

Known Participant

D,

I'm surprised that you would come on this thread and suggest that what I've asserted in here, more than once, is untrue. I actually do this and it works—dramatically. Turning off the visibility of all layers has the same effect, but because that is so inconvenient to do, my solution uses a white layer.

If it didn't work, believe you me, I wouldn't waste my time doing it—and stating that it does work on here.

J

johnivanwhiteAuthor

Known Participant

Blast, disabling "Maximise PSD and PSB compatibility to "Never"" didn't work either. The file still has a Preview and is still huge.

John

JJMack

Community Expert

Have you tried using Never saving PSD. If you do some applications like LR will not be able to do anything with the PSD. Your white layer should also mess up Lightroom for it does not have layer support it can only use the composite image that may be in PSD files. LR would only see your image is white.

I do not use LR but I do use old version of Photoshop so I always save them....

JJMack

J

johnivanwhiteAuthor

Known Participant

Hi JJ,

Yes, I used 'Never' under 'File Saving Options > Image Preview'. It seems to do nothing.

Thanks for your help with the "Maximise PSD and PSB compatibility to "Never""

John

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

Hi JJ,

Thanks for your help with the "Maximise PSD and PSB compatibility to "Never""

John

By @johnivanwhite

An old thread I know, but I know of at least one function that will not work if you turn off file compatability. I once spent a frustrating couple of days unable to make Displacement Maps work until (I think it was John) told me about this wee gotcha.

From what I can remember from the years using this forum, my impression is that most of us turn off file compression for .PSD and .PSB files. Although, now I think about it, drives are so incredibly fast nowadays, we could probably put up with the tiny wait to load large files, and win back a bit of drive space.

davescm

Community Expert

Interesting - I just added a white layer to a few PSDs to try it and the file size increased in each (I tried with PSD compression bothh enabled and disabled).

To your question if you go to Preferences>File Handling and set Maximise PSD and PSB compatibility to "Never" then it does not save a flattened preview in the PSD. Be aware though that if you use Lightroom though the preview is required.

To be honest I am not worried about file size - hard disk storage is cheap, so I always have the Maximise compatibility set . I also disable compression on PSDs and PSBs as the trade of is a larger file but quicker opening times.

Dave

J

johnivanwhiteAuthor

Known Participant

Hi Dave,

I suspect your PSD files are pretty small, so that adding a layer adds considerable data. With a 115MB file it really cuts it down massively.

I don't use Lightroom but I will have an issue with PSDs that are placed into InDesign—because they won't display.

I never knew there was a 'compress' facility!

I'll try "Maximise PSD and PSB compatibility to "Never"" now. Never saw that before!

Thanks

John

davescm

Community Expert

johnivanwhite wrote
Hi Dave,
I suspect your PSD files are pretty small, so that adding a layer adds considerable data.

I tried it with 156MB , 142MB, 195 MB and 2.8 GB files (the last being PSB)

Dave

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