Photoshop Crashed Now Layers Are Missing.

[Nzinga]

Hello. While saving a file as PDF, as I returned to save as PSD photoshop crashed. Once I reopened the file, all of my images were flattened. Are there no safe guards for crashes to prevent this? Is there a way to recover layers?

[davescm · Accepted solution]

You have been caught out by a bit of poor design that can trip you up.

When saving as a PDF and unchecking "Preserve Photoshop Editing Capabilities" the PDF is saved flattened which is what you want. However the layers are still open and visible in Photoshop. If you then save as a PSD - you will see that the "Layers" tickbox has been unchecked in the save dialogue. That means that if you do not recheck it, you will lose the layers on saving.

The only way to get your layers back is to go to a previously saved PSD with the layers. That is why saving incrementally (fileA.psd, fileB.PSD etc is a good idea whilst working on a project.

Dave