How to reduce the size of PSD files

Forum|Forum|9 years ago
November 30, 2016
3 replies
25191 views

I heard a neat trick today to reduce the size of .psd files. It works best with very big 8 bit files (not sure if it works with 16bit) but even with small files appears to give a 10% reduction in file size. It's dead simple create a new layer at the top of the layer stack and fill it with white, keep the white layer visible so the rest of the image is obscured then just save under a different name. Now compare the two files and you should see a file size reduction.

All credit to Aaron Nace for this who gave a brilliant live Q&A on Phlearn.com this afternoon.

JJMack

Community Expert

What would life be without wine?

JJMack

gener7

Community Expert

For many of us, that would defeat the purpose of thumbnails as a quick visual cue when working at the Finder or Windows Explorer level, and even Bridge. With storage costing much less these days (I just installed a $99 Crucial 524 GB SSD in my Macbook Pro) it wouldn't make that much difference to make it worth looking at white squares.

Another way of reducing the size of PSDs is to set "Maximize PSD/PSB compatibility to "Never" and in a 80 MB file, it drops 10 MB by leaving out the composite image and you can still see the thumbnail image.

But as they say, "Live your life".

S

SasquatchPatch

Participating Frequently

Or you can just use zip compressed tiffs. Really, who actually uses psd files anymore anyway. The zip compression in tiffs is more effective that the compression (RLE I think) in psd files. Unless you're saving a duotone, there's little reason to use psd anymore.

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

SasquatchPatch wrote:
Or you can just use zip compressed tiffs. Really, who actually uses psd files anymore anyway. The zip compression in tiffs is more effective that the compression (RLE I think) in psd files. Unless you're saving a duotone, there's little reason to use psd anymore.

We've had a few conversations about it here over the years, with input from Chris Cox, Jeff Schewe etc. This LL thread dates back to 2007 with JS coming down in favour if TIF. I personally prefer PSD and PSB because size is not an issue, but speed is, and we can disable compression for psd files in Preferences. I also keep backward compatibility set to Always so that I don't forget when doing Displacement Maps.

BTW I didn't know about the white layer trick, but I just tested and it seems to work with any solid colour at the top of the stack, giving me 81Mb against 91Mb.

JJMack

Community Expert

That sound like it would only reduce the files size by reducing the data required for the composite view saved. That new layer would require little data as would the full composite view. Of course programs like Lightroom would only see white for they do not not support layers just uses the psd composite saved in the psd. If something is generating thumbnails for your PSD file all your thumbnails will most likely be white.

JJMack

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