Photoshop file recovery

[merlek0220]

Does anyone know how to recover Photoshop files (from tmp files) that were successfully filed to a network location but lost from a hardware
failure?  It is my understanding that the tmp files in Photoshop disappear
after a successful file.  Some applications leave the tmp files in a local
folder that – if you knew where to look – you could find and use them.
Any tricks like that for Photoshop?  I have the same question regarding
InDesign files? 

[JJMack]

Photoshop Temp file also do not contain your images in any format the would be useful for your use and may not even have on you image's data..  Photoshop does not edit your images in files. Photoshop is not a file editor. Photoshop edits images image  data. Layers  shapes text adjustments smart objects which may even contains other image files of placed files. Your image data is all over the place in Ram data structures some data may be spilled out to scratch space. 

Photoshop cans save you images out to files. Because this is not a perfect world.   Power may fail  your OS may have Bugs and crash, Photoshop may crash etc. Adobe has added an Automatic recovery feature into Photoshop, you can configure in your Photoshop preferences.  If you do Photoshop saves out recovery documents for documents you are working on and not save the changes. Photoshop saves recovery image PSB file for documents you have open changes and not save on a time period you configured in your preferences.  Should you configure the feature  and  there is a failure the next time you start Photoshop will automatically open any recopy files that exists.  Normally when you start Photoshop there are no recovery files for recovery files are delete when you save dcument and close down Photoshop normally where you will be given the option to save open changed documents.

I do not know anything about Indesign I doe not install it.

[merlek0220]

Thank you for the guidance, JJMack.  We did not have the Automatic
recovery feature turned on in Photoshop so it sounds like it is not possible to
restore Photoshop file.  All we have is an emailed, flattened copy. 

If you don’t mind answering a few additional questions for
my understanding and planning  -- I would  be grateful.

1. If we configure Photoshop Automatic Recovery in
        Photoshop preferences – where do the recovery files reside?  In the
        file’s location (in our case, that would be on network)? Or in the local
        (workstation’s) cache area; e.g., C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Adobe\Photoshop\Cache?
2. Is there anything
        prohibitive about turning Automatic Recovery on; e.g., takes up a great
        amount of space or slows the application down?
3. With the Automatic
        Recovery feature, if we had the same scenario (a file was filed normally
        and successfully, but later lost network data), then would we be able to
        recover the file? 
4. If the answer to 3 is
        yes – then what steps would we take to recover the file?

[JJMack]

Adobe Photoshop Autorecovery Recovery feature.

When configured  Recovery files will be created in User ID Application data space for each version you the user configures autorecovery should be used.  A folder will be created for these files to be stored in. for example on a windows system you will see folder like:

"C:\Users\(your User ID)\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CC 2018\AutoRecover"

These folders are normally empty.  The only time there are files in these folders  is when you have Open documents in Photoshop that you have made changes to  that have not been save yet and the autorecovery time intervals has been reach at least once.  

So autorecovery disk space requirement depend on how many open documents are opened with unsaved changes.  Recovery file are layered PSB file that Photoshop saves each recover time period.  Recovery files are not versioned  new autosave replaces the previous saved recovery  psb for an open document.  If you edit huge documents with thousands of layers  disk space may be an issue. Normally you should not run your OS with little free space in user application data space.  Normally your boot disk need to have quite a bit of free space if you want your OS to perform well and smoothly.  

If  something goes wrong where Photoshop is not close down properly.  When you start Photoshop, Photoshop will see your useuid has recovery files and  Photoshop will aromatically open these PSB files to help you recover what you were doing.   Your original files should still be fine but they will  NOT have any of the the Changer you made that you did not get a chance to save.  The Auto recovery file will have most if not all of the unsaved changes you made.  However there will be no history in the history palette for these changes. There is also that time period thing there a window where you may have made  changed after the last autosave and the system crashes before the next auto save.   So some changes not have been auto saved.  The names of the recovery document will reflect the name of the document you were working on and also have "-Recovered" in the document name so you can use "Save As" to save changes to where they should be saved to.    The Actual PSB name are different.   I killed CC 2018 to force recovery to exist so when I start Photoshop the will be recovery files the it will  open.  Photoshop CC had been open for days with some junk I was playing with un saved

[merlek0220]

Thank you, JJMack.  I appreciate your thorough explanation of Photoshops Auto Recovery feature.
Super helpful for my planning.  Thanks, again!