What does the PSD viewer show?
It shows the image saved in the PSD, the facts about the file, and its layers. Photoshop stores a flattened copy of the whole image inside each PSD when Maximize Compatibility is on (Photoshop asks about it when you save, unless File Handling preferences are set to Always or Never), and that copy is what you see in the preview (Adobe’s PSD specification calls it the merged image).
| Shown | Where it comes from |
|---|---|
| Preview | The merged image saved in the file, with transparency on a checkerboard |
| Size | Width and height in pixels from the file header |
| Print size | Pixels divided by the saved resolution, in inches and centimetres |
| Colour | Colour mode (RGB, CMYK, Grayscale, Indexed, Lab, Bitmap, Duotone) and bits per channel |
| Profile | The name of the embedded ICC colour profile, such as sRGB IEC61966-2.1 |
| Layers | Names (including emoji and non-Latin scripts), groups, visibility, opacity, blend mode, masks and type (text, smart object, adjustment, fill) |
| Thumbnails | Each layer’s own pixels, scaled down |
Which PSD files does it open?
PSDs saved by Photoshop, and by other apps that follow Adobe’s format. We tested files from Photoshop, GIMP and ImageMagick (see the test note below).
| Supported | |
|---|---|
| Formats | PSD and PSB (Large Document Format, up to 300,000 px a side) |
| Bit depth | 8 and 16-bit; 32-bit HDR is tone-mapped to 8 bits for the screen |
| Colour modes | RGB, CMYK, Grayscale, Indexed, Lab, Bitmap; Duotone shown in gray; Multichannel shows the first channel |
| Compression | Raw, RLE (PackBits) and ZIP, with and without prediction |
| Layers | Pixel, text, smart object, fill and adjustment layers are listed; groups nest as in Photoshop |
When does the preview not match Photoshop?
Almost always it matches, because it is the image Photoshop drew itself. The exceptions:
- Maximize Compatibility was off. The file then holds no merged image (Adobe’s specification says the layers must be read to rebuild it). The viewer stacks the visible pixel layers with Normal blending, opacity and masks, and tells you which blend modes, adjustment layers and effects it left out.
- CMYK and Lab files. Colours are converted to RGB with standard formulas, not the file’s profile.
- 32-bit files. HDR values above white are clipped when they are brought down to 8 bits.
- Layer thumbnails and single-layer previews show the layer’s own pixels with its mask. Layer effects such as drop shadows and strokes are drawn by Photoshop at display time, so they are not in the layer’s pixels.
How else can I open a PSD without Photoshop?
Most image editors read PSD. Photopea runs in a browser and edits layers. GIMP, Krita and Affinity Photo open PSDs as layered documents on the desktop. On a Mac, Preview opens a PSD as a flat image. This viewer is for when you only need to look at a file, check its details or pull out the image and layers, without installing or signing up for anything.
How it was tested
Tested on 2026-10-15 in Chrome 148 on a laptop with an Intel Core i7-14700HX:
- All 54 sample PSD and PSB files from the psd-tools test suite (MIT licence), most of them saved by Photoshop, opened without errors. They cover 1, 8, 16 and 32-bit files, every colour mode, groups, masks, text, smart objects and emoji layer names.
- For the 8 and 16-bit RGB, Grayscale, CMYK, Indexed, Bitmap and Duotone samples, the image matched ImageMagick 7.1.1 reading the same file to within one level per channel.
- A 6,000 × 4,000 px PSD of 59.9 million bytes with five layers, two of them in a group, opened in about 1.3 seconds, and all five layer thumbnails followed about 1.5 seconds later.
- A 2.3 MB, 3,300 × 5,100 px CMYK print file saved by Photoshop opened in about 1 second.
Larger files and slower devices take longer.