Save as PSD or TIFF with layers.

[Squidgy]

Hi everyone,
Just a quick one, I have looked (maybe not hard enough) through the forum for any previous post but cant find one that answers my question as follows. I save images from Photoshop CS5 with layers so that I can tweak things afterwards if needed.

I have been saving files as PSD's (space saving) and haven't noticed any difference in image quality between that and TIFF, there is obviously some compression going on as PSD's are smaller than TIFFS so here's the question:

Is it better to save with layers as a PSD or TIFF? Is there a quality trade-off from one to the other?

Thanks in advance of a reply.
Nigel.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Nigel,

I save as psd too, I'm pretty sure that the compression is "loss-less", but cannot be completely certain.

Anyone else know?

[martinp2502]

I save in PSD but have been told the tiff file is more compatible with other applications. So if I was asked to send a layered file to someone (which has never happened) I'd send as a tiff.

[bambleweeney]

PSD format is lossless no doubt about it. I can't seem the point in saving TIFF with layers as for one the file sizes tend to be larger and if somebody asked me to give them a layered file (no one's ever asked me either) there is no guarantee that they could open it sensibly with anything other than Photoshop (due to the different layer types - e.g smart objects as far as I know are Photoshop only another app probably wouldn't make any sense of them)
Image data in a PSD file is stored in RLE or ZIP format (both lossless) and is but a part of the PSD along with colour mode and layer information data. A TIFF is a byte for byte representation of the image file but you can compress from Photoshop as ZIP (I believe). Never looked at the size comparison between a PSD file and a compressed TIFF though I suspect that they could be similiar.

[Squidgy]

Thanks Dave, Martin and Paul, If you guy's are saving as PSD then that's good enough for me! It saves me so much space and time compared to using TIFF's and I thought it was compressing the file but wasn't sure if there was some compromise in quality.

Thanks again, very much appreciated.

[DanK]

I save as PSD if I want to preserve the layers or bring it back into Lightroom. I save as TIFF without layers when I need to move to an external editor, such as Zerene, which I use for stacking. Both PSD and TIFF are lossless, I believe.

[Squidgy]

Thanks Dan, saving as PSD is the way I am going from now on. I might be able to cut down on the stack of back-up hard drives too!

[rpcrowe]

After I have done input sharpening, color correction, cloned out any unwanted objects, settled on a correct density and contrast; in fact after I have done all my editing except the final cropping and output sharpening, I save the image as a PSD Master.

I can then crop the image any way that I want and apply final output sharpening and save it as a JPEG to send via email or post on the web or I can save it as a TIFF if someone wants that format. I also use a custom printer for my canvas prints who will accept PSD images.

I save the final sharpening until I know that my output type and size will be.

I don't crop or resize until the last steps because I don't know what my final uses will be. Early in my digital career, I was burned because a calendar company wanted to use some of my Maltese images for their yearly calendar. Unfortunately, I had cropped the images to either square or portrait format and had also applied a border around them and saved them that way. The calendar company needed them in a landscape format. I call it just common sense not to repeat a mistake but to learn from that mistake.

Saving the uncropped, border-less images, without final output sharpening applied, allows me to use these images in any way that I want...

[Squidgy]

Hi Richard,
Thanks for the "excellent advice", experience is a great teacher.

All the very best to you for the work you do for the Maltese dog rescue too. Respect!

[Adrian]

Many pros save in multiple formats. (I am no pro, but I have paid for training in this)

TIFF has the advantage that it is quite a future proof archive as it will open on practically any software. Obviously used for printing as well as it splits the colours (hence large file size). The future proof aspect is important as it i snot tie dot iterations of photoshop, lightroom, aperture etc

My own workflow is:

Open an archive folder with four sub folders in it: raw, selected, tiff and jpeg
Work in raw and save that as a raw archive folder: never touched
Duplicate it as my "selected" set and using Bridge or whatever rank the photos: this is basically a cull as I will only process 5* photos
Process them in photoshop or whatever your developing software is
Save processed images as TIFF in one folder
Save as psd in the selected folder
Save as JPEG (100% 300dpi) in the fourth folder
Back everything up
Copy the backup

This gives you a very secure and flexible file structure.

[Ken MT]

What is "important as it i snot tie dot iterations"?