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TiER1VideoSuite
Participant
August 28, 2013
Answered

"...not a valid Photoshop document" error when opening Mac cc file on PC

  • August 28, 2013
  • 18 replies
  • 153925 views

I get a "Could not complete your request because it is not a valid Photoshop document." error message whenever I try to open up a PSD file created on a Mac using Photoshop CC on my PC using CC. Other people have been able to open the file from the same location, so the files aren't corrupted. Anyone know how to fix this?

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer teknishn-dfwcp

    I know this thread is a bit old, but I wanted to share my experience and solution in case anyone else runs into this.

    The other day, I spent many hours editing some photos for a client. I saved them all and closed Photoshop. When I tried to open the .PSDs, they all came up with this "Not a valid Photoshop document" error. I was freaking out. I could see the thunmbnails and previews with the MacOS Finder and could see the images just fine in Lightroom, but couldn't open them in Photoshop CC.

    Finally, I remembered that these were NOT supposed to be .psd files! They were supposed to be TIFFs. What happened was, when I edited them from within Lightroom into Photoshop, they opened as TIFFs. However, when I did "save as", I wanted to name them similarly to some other files I had. I clicked on one of the existing files to copy the file name in the Save As dialog to make it easier to name the new file I was saving, but I didn't realize it was changing the file extention from ".tif" to ".psd" as well. The older MacOS (version 9 and earlier) didn't rely on file extensions fo identifying file types, so it didn't hit me right away that this would be the problem. When I changed the incorrect .psd file extension to .tiff, the files opened in Photoshop just fine.

    SO... if you run into this "Not a valid Photoshop document" error, try figuring out if it's actually another file type (.jpg, .tif, .png, etc) by either getting the file info from another program or just experimenting with different file extensions. Chances are good that your file isn't actually corrupt, but just named improperly!

    18 replies

    rubena15037676
    rubena15037676
    Participant
    December 9, 2020

    This worked for me.  I tried several things, but simply changing the extension to .tiff allowed me to open the file with all the layers intact.  I was worried I would have to recreate the file.  Thank you for the solution!

     

    My system is a macbook pro running photoshop CC

    K
    Khar5EAE
    Participant
    September 23, 2020

    I had the same error but instead i turned the psd to PDF, i wanted to turn them into layers, i was teleported to import pdf, i thought i was gonna fix it, insted its just an image that i cannot edit

    L
    leelee0210
    Participant
    May 19, 2020

    sorry, i still cannot fix that problem..

    P
    pstraus141
    Known Participant
    May 3, 2020

    Thank you very much! I could not understand why Adobe Bridge could open a beautiful set of red seed pods, but Photoshop could not. I changed the file extension to tif, and all the work on that photograph reappeared. Thank you very much.

     

    Phil

    laurenrogersdesign
    laurenrogersdesign
    Participant
    November 26, 2019

    Thankyou! You've saved my life over 5 years later 🙂

    M
    matttardiff75
    Participant
    January 17, 2020

    I work off Dropbox and usually never have an issue but if Smart Sync is turned on there's a chance your file is set to online only, instead of local.

    At least for me, Photoshop wouldn't read the file but as soon as I right clicked on the file->Smart Sync->Local, it was all good.

     

    D
    David Knowles
    Participant
    November 1, 2019

    Worked for me. Thank you.

    M
    ManuDC
    Participant
    October 27, 2019

    I just switched to the new OX: Catalina. When I open a recently made psd (which I only use next to jpg) I have the same problem. I tried to re-safe it in psd, but it doesn't work. So my filetype is for sure psd and I don't know how to solve it. 

      K
      Keena
      Participant
      August 23, 2020

      Same. I know they were PSD files, not tiffs.

       

        A
        actrask_momentum
        Participant
        February 1, 2019

        If this happens so much, can you guys have a more specific and helpful error prompt when it happens?

        Thanks!

        S
        SEKAR R D
        Participant
        October 20, 2019

        Could not complete your request because it is not a valid Photoshop document.

         

          jilltrujill
          jilltrujill
          Participant
          August 15, 2018

          Im having the same problem but the file in question is an actual psd file that i created and edited several times without any problem until yesterday when i tried to open it and the error message popped up. The file extension says "Adobe photoshop image.18" but so do all my other psd files (i am able to open all those files without any problem though) I am working on a pc and the files dont show the extension in the name so I cannot just retype the extension from .psd to .tif. is there another way to do this?

          R
          raythevideoguy
          Participant
          March 28, 2018

          Not true.  I have a bunch of PSD files that have worked for ages.  I recently had to re-build my computer, and now I get that error with ALL my PSDs, which open fine on other machines

            M
            ManuDC
            Participant
            October 27, 2019

            Same! Can please someone help?

             

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