Save as function

[gerardov5855670]

The save as function is disabled in Photoshop.  It won't let me save my files it won't open the window. What I can do? 

[D Fosse · Accepted solution]

"Save As" now lists only the formats that support all the current properties of the file. All other formats, with limited support, are now moved to "Save A Copy".

This was changed because the Save As jpeg function had already been broken for over a year on the Mac side, since Catalina. Saving over a jpeg resulted in a separate file with "-copy" appended. The programming function to strip "-copy" from the filename had been removed by Apple, and there was no way for Adobe to work around it. The Save As jpeg function was rendered useless by this and had to be totally rewritten.

To be clear, saving a layered/16 bit file as jpeg saved out a copy the whole time. That is important to understand! The jpeg format does not allow 16 bit depth, layers, transparency or alpha channels. That fact was just hidden by Photoshop, by removing "-copy", but with Catalina it was no longer possible and "-copy" would always appear regardless.

This is not a bug, but a deliberate policy from Apple.

Everybody should keep in mind that the direct save to jpeg, from 16 bit/layered files, was introduced in Photoshop CS5 in 2010. Prior to that, it was not possible at all to save directly to jpeg. First you had to remove every property in the file that wasn't supported in the jpeg specification. Only then could you save it. So this is nothing new - but this time you can use Save A Copy.

Platform parity has always been important in Photoshop, for the sake of actions, plugins, tutorials and so on. So it had to be changed in the Windows version as well, even though it never was a problem on Windows. But it may well be in the future, if Microsoft adopts the same policy.