.psd — Photoshop Document
Image image/vnd.adobe.photoshop
What a .psd file is
Adobe Photoshop's working format, preserving layers, masks, adjustment layers, smart objects and text as editable data.
How to open it
Photoshop, or Photopea (free, in-browser), GIMP and Affinity Photo with varying fidelity.
Worth knowing
PSD files get large fast. Export a flattened PNG or JPEG for sharing and keep the PSD as the master.
How to identify a .psd file
A file's extension is only its name — renaming a.png to a.psd changes nothing inside. What software actually reads is the magic number, the first few bytes of the file.
| Signature | 38 42 50 53 |
| MIME type | image/vnd.adobe.photoshop |
| Category | Image |
ASCII "8BPS".
# what is this file really?
file mystery.psd
# look at the first bytes yourself
xxd mystery.psd | head -2
head -c 16 mystery.psd | xxd
# Windows PowerShell
Get-Content mystery.psd -AsByteStream -TotalCount 16 | Format-HexFrequently asked questions
What is a .psd file?
Adobe Photoshop's working format, preserving layers, masks, adjustment layers, smart objects and text as editable data.
How do I open a .psd file?
Photoshop, or Photopea (free, in-browser), GIMP and Affinity Photo with varying fidelity.
Is .psd safe to open?
Yes. A .psd file is data, not code — opening one cannot execute anything by itself.
Can I change a file's extension to convert it?
No. Renaming changes the label, not the bytes. The one place it appears to work is between formats that genuinely share a container — renaming .docx to .zip works because a DOCX is a ZIP. Everything else needs a real converter.
Other image formats
- .heic — High Efficiency Image Container
- .webp — WebP Image
- .avif — AV1 Image File Format
- .svg — Scalable Vector Graphics
- .ai — Adobe Illustrator Artwork
- .raw — Camera Raw Image