Photoshop is by far the best editor for working with a PSD file. It saves your entire conversion history so you can close at any time and resume later. The difficulty here is that licensed Photoshop() is a very expensive pleasure. If you only need to open and view a few files created in Photoshop, then there is no need to use such heavy software.

Luckily, there are free options. Are they as good as Photoshop? - No. How powerful or flexible? - Not at all. In fact, most of these applications will only be able to view the PSD, without the ability to work with layers. But often a review and minor edits are all we need.

GIMP

Paint.NET

Google Drive

1. It seems strange to use Google Drive as your picture viewer, but don't be confused—it works pretty well. Log in to the service, Click “My Drive” and select “Upload files...”.
2. Find and open the PSD file. Double click the file to view. This is probably the easiest way to view one or more files in the proprietary PSD format.

Video: Review of the GIMP graphics editor

How to open a psd file, what is hidden behind this extension, and are there free programs to work with it?

The name Photoshop Document (PSD) means a file made in Photoshop. It is distinguished from more common graphic formats (jpeg, gif and png) by the following features:

• contains a raster image consisting of multi-colored or transparent dots (in contrast to a vector image, which is a series of geometric shapes);
• uses quality-preserving compression and typically has a large file size;
• stores and allows you to edit individual layers with parts of the image or special effects;
• supports fully and partially transparent areas;
• may contain variable inscriptions made in different fonts, geometric shapes and other editable vector elements.

Programs for viewing and editing psd files

A standard image viewer will most likely not be able to open such a file; viewing or editing will require a specialized tool. The choice of a graphic editor for psd files is influenced by several factors:

• the need for serious professional work or light processing at the amateur level;
• the operating system you have installed;
• the opportunity to spend a certain amount on purchasing software.

Let's consider the features of popular programs for working with *.psd, taking into account these nuances.

Adobe Photoshop - a professional environment for photo processing

The famous raster graphics editor supports Windows (including versions 7 and 8), and it also works with OS X. This professional environment for processing photographs and images created from scratch is equipped with a wide range of tools.


But you have to pay for the functionality - the program is distributed by subscription, you can only get a trial version for free.

GIMP is a free and open source graphics editor.

GIMP works with all popular operating systems (Windows, Mac OS, Linux) and is only slightly inferior to its commercial counterpart. GIMP is good for home use: it has a set of basic image processing functions and is compatible with the formats and tools of other editors.

IrfanView - image viewer

If you just need to open a psd file or make small changes to it, use this simple image viewer instead of the heavyweight editors described above. IrfanView allows you to get basic information about files, display them in various modes and apply simple effects to them.

It runs on Windows and has a free version for home use.

A PSD file can have resolutions up to 30,000 pixels in both height and width. The format also supports various popular modifications, for example, RGB, grayscale, CMYK, multi-channel colors, monochrome scale, etc. The PSD format is not without the ability to contain some types of graphic elements in vector graphics.

Although the PSD format is characterized, first of all, by compression without significant loss of quality, which is based on RLE technology, that is, cropping of series. Still, images in this format weigh quite well, but much less than TIF files, which have no compression at all.

The PSD format is often used as an intermediate result of the wizard’s work, before the final design of the site. If you just plan to save the original image, they usually use slightly different formats for this.

Windows operating system, starting with XP, it is replete with all kinds of software that can open the PSD format. And here is just the main part of this software: Adobe Photoshop CS, Adobe Illustrator CS, Adobe Photoshop Elements, Adobe InDesign CS, CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X, Apple QuickTime Player, Corel PaintShop Pro X, ACD Systems ACDSee, Corel Painter, ACD Systems Canvas, GIMP , MAGIX Xara Designer Pro, DXTBmp, XnView, IrfanView, FastPictureViewer Professional, etc.

On Mac OS the situation is a little worse: Adobe InDesign CS, Adobe Photoshop CS, Adobe Illustrator CS, Adobe Photoshop Elements, Apple Preview, Snap ConverterCorel Painter, .

On Linux operating systems Only GIMP can handle this format.

On Google Android has its own product - Adobe Debut.

All you have to do is choose the program you like. However, it’s worth knowing that not all of them are free and not all of them on the list are easy to use.

Therefore, we highly recommend that you use an application called GIMP to work with PSD format. is a wonderful free and multifunctional program, which is also present in all currently popular operating systems. It is simple and pleasant to work with, and in terms of functionality, Adobe Photoshop is not much inferior.

So we figured out what the PSD format, quite well known in certain circles, is. And most importantly, they answered the question of how to open it. We wish you good luck in working with PSD format!

PSD – Adobe Photoshop file. However, how to open a PSD file without using Photoshop? Of course, many programs support PSD. And free ones are GIMP, Paint.net (with the PDS plugin installed), IrfanView (viewing without editing), PSD viewer, Fast Stown (viewing the resulting image without the ability to edit) paid ones - Corel Drow, Corel PHOTO-PAINT, Adobe Illustrator and others .

Without installing programs, you can view PSD files online.

– with this online editor you will not only open SD, but also see its layer-by-layer structure, and can also perform simple actions on the document. The available tools are brush, eraser, selection (lasso, magic wand, rectangular area, text, eraser, frame, move, gradient, magnifying glass, foreground and background color, stamp).

Photoshop online - here you will find many tools and commands similar to Adobe Photoshop, as well as the use of Photoshop hotkeys. Supports layers and PSD format.

– an interesting shareware service (test period 14 days), in which you can open a full-fledged application GIPM, LibreOffice Draw, Kolour Paint and others in pop-up windows. Many of them understand and edit PSD. To open files, you must first connect to dropbox cloud storage and upload the editable files to it.

Works only as an SD file viewer. You can't view layers, much less edit them.

Zamzar is a multifunctional online converter. After converting a PSD file to an image of another format, you can view the resulting image.

To identify files by operating systems, as well as their owners, a concept called an extension is most often used. It is always displayed after the name and is represented as several characters separated from it by a dot. For example: “response.txt”, as can be seen from the name, is a kind of text file. Therefore, you should open it using the appropriate editor.

By again paying attention to the extension, the user will understand that this file is encoded in the most universal and at the same time simple format - txt. The latter significantly expands the list of available editors in which you can work with the information contained in this file.

In addition, the extension allows the operating system itself to quickly understand exactly how and with which application it is better to open the specified file. And this, in turn, speeds up the work - the user is offered an already prepared list of available programs.

PSD extension

There are a huge number of file extension types, which can be divided into several categories depending on the content. These are images, text, media files, tables and charts, and other types of information. Among images, the psd extension has gained particular popularity. It has a complex structure and support for image layers, masks, adjustment layers, etc. Such a file, like any other, has a “native” program in which it was created. It is best to view and make changes using it.

How to open PSD?

Despite its high popularity, this format can cause difficulties for novice PC users. This problem is mainly due to the fact that people do not know how to open the psd so that it displays correctly. It is even more difficult to resolve this issue when you need to not only view the file, but also make changes to it. In any case, you will first need to find out what program was used to create the image.

Here, just enter the name into any search engine to get the answer: Adobe Photoshop, one of the most popular graphic editors at present, was used. And only it allows you to fully edit such files. The situation is much simpler if you only need to glance at the contents. There is an opportunity to use third-party programs. They will be discussed below.

How to open psd if you don't have Photoshop?

PSD Viewer

If you want to get acquainted with the contents of an unfamiliar file, but you don’t have the necessary Photoshop at hand, then you can use the services of this small utility. It is distributed completely free of charge, and finding the program on the Internet will not be difficult. We can recommend PSD Viewer to anyone who does not want to install Photoshop, but still wants their computer to recognize and easily open files with the psd extension. The only drawback of the utility is that it does not allow you to edit the content.

However, PSD Viewer supports some basic features, such as rotating an image, reducing or enlarging its size without losing quality, and converting to other, simpler formats. You should be careful with the latter, since all masks and layers are lost, merging into a single image that can no longer be edited in the same way, even if by that time you have acquired the “native” Adobe Photoshop editor.

Paint.NET

An alternative answer to the question of how to open psd may seem even simpler. In the absence of other options, it is recommended to use good old Paint. The undoubted advantage of the program is that it is also a graphic editor, which means it allows you to make changes to the image. True, in order to fully work with raster graphics, you will have to download and connect a special module that slightly expands the capabilities of this application. It's called "PSD Plugin". After downloading, the module will need to be unzipped into the Paint folder called “File Types”.