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> Earlier, I tried to get a hold of the latest specs for the PSD file format. To do this, > I had to apply to them for permission to apply to them to have them
by barotalomey 2y ago
> Earlier, I tried to get a hold of the latest specs for the PSD file format. To do this,
> I had to apply to them for permission to apply to them to have them consider sending
> me this sacred tome. This would have involved faxing them a copy of some document or
> other, probably signed in blood.
“But the plans were on display…”
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”
(FWIW, the format is publicly available https://www.adobe.com/devnet-apps/photoshop/fileformatashtml/ https://www.adobe.com/devnet-apps/photoshop/fileformatashtml...)
- xandrius 2y agoIt feels all that tangent boils down to "not enough research" and their fault alone? The effort of typing "adobe psd format specification" on any search engine is very low and it returns the page above. Maybe OP just nerdsniped themselves and never thought of taking a moment and checking better online? Not sure.
- shakna 2y agoThe spec document here is published in 2019, and the OP was writing in 2009. There may not have been such a document, at the time. And the document may not have been the "latest" spec that they were requiring.
- barotalomey 2y ago> It feels all that tangent boils down to "not enough research" and their fault alone? My comment wasnt very focused. I didnt mean to say author missed a google result. Rather, TODAY psd spec is readily available. I don't think it was as easy to be found when author wrote that comment in 2008 or whatever.
- xandrius 2y agoOh, ok. I missed the 2008 part.
- cAtte_ 2y agohow do you think they managed to write the parser without access to the spec then? clearly OP knew about the public document. instead it seems like they're referring to some weird private superset of the format that wasn't publicly available
- bayindirh 2y agoReverse engineering is an option, I guess. NTFS, HFS, Microsoft Office formats, many cameras' RAW formats, etc. were reverse engineered with blood sweat and tears to allow interoperability and rescuing some information from them in dire situations for years now. Paragon Software won't be able to give their NTFS source code to Linux Kernel if they got the docs from Microsoft. Microsoft have made Paragon disappear overnight. Edit: Just found out that Paragon still updates and maintains the mainline driver in the Kernel. Huge props to them. Addenda: The first snapshot of this particular webpage appears in Jan 15, 2011, titled July 2010 [0]. This particular incarnation of format is born in 1990, if we believe the Copyright lines in the beginning. There's also a small CSS change comment from "25 Jun, 2009" in the beginning. So the page was present in 2009. [0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20110115150245/https://www.adobe.com/devnet-apps/photoshop/fileformatashtml/ https://web.archive.org/web/20110115150245/https://www.adobe...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- rottc0dd 2y agoFor those who are wondering, this is quote from "Hitchhiker's guide to Galaxy" by Douglas Adams. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#Chapter_1 https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_th...