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You blame GIMP for not opening PSDs correctly, but note that it's not an open format and it's not a standard. GIMP developers can do nothing but try to reverse

You blame GIMP for not opening PSDs correctly, but note that it's not an open format and it's not a standard. GIMP developers can do nothing but try to reverse engineer support for it.

enobrev 10y ago
You're absolutely right. The bar I'm setting is probably too high, but it's not set from anything beyond my desire to get work done. Literally: "nothing personal, but I can't use this"
- throwanem 10y ago
  That is not too high a bar to set for an application that's billed as, among other things, a tool for professionals.
krapp 10y ago
PSD is not an open format but it is most definitely an industry standard, and being unable to support it properly makes GIMP an inferior replacement for professional graphics work because of that.
yoklov 10y ago
You can go through a convoluted process to get the documentation for the standard from Adobe (Someone where I used to work did this so we could add support for PSD to a game engine). I'll concede that that's unpalatable, and that it's probably something you need to do regularly as PSD does get updates. I'll also concede that its considerably easier to open a pdf for display vs for editing, and maybe all the info for the latter isn't there in the docs. Its also not a fun format to work with as its grown organically over many, many years. All that said, GIMP usually bungs up the colors which makes it pretty unsuitable even for opening a psd for view. This shouldn't be acceptable at all. (Sorry, I haven't had enough coffee yet to make this into a coherent point instead of a few random thoughts...)
- Someone 10y ago
  "You can go through a convoluted process to get the documentation for the standard from Adobe" I doesn't look complete to me (there's lots of things just marked 'obsolete' that, I guess, one will encounter in the wild, and things like "Macintosh printer record" that I fear you'll have to dig up tech notes from the '80s for), but it seems that has improved a bit, as there is information available for free at adobe.com now, whereas you needed to sign an NDA to get the SDK before: https://www.adobe.com/devnet-apps/photoshop/fileformatashtml/ https://www.adobe.com/devnet-apps/photoshop/fileformatashtml... (via http://www.adobe.com/devnet/photoshop.html http://www.adobe.com/devnet/photoshop.html)
vetinari 10y ago
For the completeness, the famous "PSD is not a good format" rant: http://codepad.org/DidDsbjF http://codepad.org/DidDsbjF (it is not available at Google Code anymore). The reply from Adobe: http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2009/05/some_thoughts_about_the_psd_format.html http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2009/05/some_thoughts_about_the... They both explain, why expecting 100% PSD compatibility is unrealistic.

You blame GIMP for not opening PSDs correctly, but note that it's not an open format and it's not a standard. GIMP developers can do nothing but try to reverse engineer support for it.

enobrev 10y ago

You're absolutely right. The bar I'm setting is probably too high, but it's not set from anything beyond my desire to get work done. Literally: "nothing personal, but I can't use this"

throwanem 10y ago
That is not too high a bar to set for an application that's billed as, among other things, a tool for professionals.

krapp 10y ago

PSD is not an open format but it is most definitely an industry standard, and being unable to support it properly makes GIMP an inferior replacement for professional graphics work because of that.

yoklov 10y ago

You can go through a convoluted process to get the documentation for the standard from Adobe (Someone where I used to work did this so we could add support for PSD to a game engine). I'll concede that that's unpalatable, and that it's probably something you need to do regularly as PSD does get updates. I'll also concede that its considerably easier to open a pdf for display vs for editing, and maybe all the info for the latter isn't there in the docs. Its also not a fun format to work with as its grown organically over many, many years. All that said, GIMP usually bungs up the colors which makes it pretty unsuitable even for opening a psd for view. This shouldn't be acceptable at all. (Sorry, I haven't had enough coffee yet to make this into a coherent point instead of a few random thoughts...)

Someone 10y ago
"You can go through a convoluted process to get the documentation for the standard from Adobe" I doesn't look complete to me (there's lots of things just marked 'obsolete' that, I guess, one will encounter in the wild, and things like "Macintosh printer record" that I fear you'll have to dig up tech notes from the '80s for), but it seems that has improved a bit, as there is information available for free at adobe.com now, whereas you needed to sign an NDA to get the SDK before: https://www.adobe.com/devnet-apps/photoshop/fileformatashtml/ https://www.adobe.com/devnet-apps/photoshop/fileformatashtml... (via http://www.adobe.com/devnet/photoshop.html http://www.adobe.com/devnet/photoshop.html)

vetinari 10y ago

For the completeness, the famous "PSD is not a good format" rant: http://codepad.org/DidDsbjF http://codepad.org/DidDsbjF (it is not available at Google Code anymore). The reply from Adobe: http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2009/05/some_thoughts_about_the_psd_format.html http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2009/05/some_thoughts_about_the... They both explain, why expecting 100% PSD compatibility is unrealistic.