Error exporting to PSD

[Ryansamul]

I’ve done a bunch of editing on a PSD I imported and saved in the affinity format, but now when I go to export it as a psd which the client needs as the file format it says there is an error.  It’s a large image so I will have to crop it to keep it under the 30,000 pixel maximum, but it won’t export even a small image now.  Please help! 

[walt.farrell]

What error message do you get when you try to export?

[Ryansamul]

‘Error exporting to’ then the path and the file name.

Edited December 1, 2023 by Ryansamul

[NathanC]

Welcome to the forums @Ryansamul,

Have you tried exporting to a different location or directory on your device, for example if you're exporting to a Network/External/Cloud drive, try saving to a directory which is on your local disk. If it also occurs when saving to your local disk, check that you have sufficient storage space available for the exported file.

If it's still prompting the error, could you provide a copy of the affinity file you're attempting to export along with a screenshot of your PSD export settings? I've provided a private upload link below if you do not wish to share it Publicly.

https://www.dropbox.com/request/znaUwoxydMEoAylZdqvi

[Ryansamul]

Thanks @NathanC,

I tried again to export the image to my local drive (I was trying to export to my dropbox, but thats still on my drive), and I got the same error message.   I've successfully uploaded the .afphoto file and a screen shot of the export settings.  There is 2.18 Tb on my hard drive.  The exact message is "An error occurred while exporting to: *path & filename.psd"

For visibility the export settings are:

File Settings:

PSD

Preset:  PSD (preserve accuracy)

Resample: Bilinear

Area: Whole Document

I did not check 'don't export layers hidden by Export Persona

Advanced:

Resample: Bilinear

Compatibility mode is checked

Rasterize all layers is not checked

the rest of the options are 'Preserve accuracy'

and embed metadata is checked.

 

Thanks!

 

Ryan

Edited December 5, 2023 by Ryansamul

[NathanC]

Hi @Ryansamul,

Thanks for the file, PSD files (Even in Photoshop) have a file size limitation of 2GB which cannot be exceeded, your .afphoto file is 5GB+ so when exporting your file out to PSD it's running into this size limit and therefore failing on export. In Photoshop it is possible to workaround this limitation by saving the file out as a PSB, however affinity does not currently support PSB export so this wouldn't be possible at the moment i'm afraid. The minimum doc size I can get your file exported out to PSD is when re-sizing the document down to 11000x11000.

[Ryansamul]

Again thanks @NathanC

With the way Affinity Photo 2 exports files, I'm wondering what is the best choice for similar (or better) resolution/resampling/compression?  

Thank you for helping out on this,

 

Ryan.

 

 

 

Thanks @NathanC,

I tried again to export the image to my local drive (I was trying to export to my dropbox, but thats still on my drive), and I got the same error message.   I've uploaded the .afphoto file and a screen shot of the export settings.  There is 2.18 Tb on my hard drive.  The exact message is "An error occurred while exporting to: *path & filename.psd"

For visibility the export settings are:

File Settings:

PSD

Preset:  PSD (preserve accuracy)

Resample: Bilinear

Area: Whole Document

I did not check 'don't export layers hidden by Export Persona

Advanced:

Resample: Bilinear

Compatibility mode is checked

Rasterize all layers is not checked

the rest of the options are 'Preserve accuracy'

and embed metadata is checked.

 

Thanks!

 

Ryan

[NathanC]

29 minutes ago, Ryansamul said:

Again thanks @NathanC

With the way Affinity Photo 2 exports files, I'm wondering what is the best choice for similar (or better) resolution/resampling/compression?  

Thank you for helping out on this,

Are you referring to export file formats? Each come with their own advantages and drawbacks so the best format can be subjective and also dependant on what you're exporting along with it's intended final use. I'm guessing that you were exporting to PSD as you wanted to open your document in Photoshop while preserving the existing pixel layers and adjustments? TIFF may be a good choice since it's quite versatile and lossless but you'll likely still end up with a huge final file size, and with it being a raster based file format your layers will get flattened.

[Ryansamul]

Yes, export file formats.  As far as layers are concerned, thats not 100% a problem (though in certain cases it would be nice), it's more whatever format Affinity exports with the highest quality and lowest compression.  I tried exporting my file to a TIFF format with no compression, but the resulting exported TIFF file photoshop would not open.  I then tried exporting with the same settings but with a zip compression and the file would open.  Is there a reason for that?

[NathanC]

I've just tested this for myself with two exports of your .afphoto, one with no compression and the other with ZIP compression applied and both opened as expected in Photoshop, is it possible that you had 'Save with Affinity layers' ticked? It may be worth checking this is unticked and re-exporting again, and also confirm that the uncompressed tiff can be opened in Affinity before trying it in PS.

I did notice using the ZIP compression method did significantly cut down the TIFF file size from 2.4gb to 1.2gb and with it being lossless the image quality is preserved. 

[Ryansamul]

Thanks for all this!  Very helpful, I'll give it a whirl and report back, but lossless TIFF seems like the move.

 

Yes, export file formats.  As far as layers are concerned, thats not 100% a problem (though in certain cases it would be nice), it's more whatever format Affinity exports with the highest quality and lowest compression.  I tried exporting my file to a TIFF format with no compression, but the resulting exported TIFF file photoshop would not open.  I then tried exporting with the same settings but with a zip compression and the file would open.  Is there a reason for that?

[Ryansamul]

So I exported another Affinity image to TIFF with zip compression and affinity layers selected and photoshop said that "Could not open “**filename**” because of a problem parsing the TIFF file."Could not open “tibet2_Panorama_v2-006(projected)-square-fix-sm.tiff” because of a problem parsing the TIFF file.   Then I tried to open in Affinity and affinity said

"Failed to open file **filename**.tiff  The file type is not supported.

I then exported affinity image to TIFF with zip compression and no affinity layers and it opened both in photoshop and affinity, but there were no layers.  Beyond exporting all the layers as separate files, is there no standard format that I can export with layers?

Thanks!!

 

 

Yes, export file formats.  As far as layers are concerned, thats not 100% a problem (though in certain cases it would be nice), it's more whatever format Affinity exports with the highest quality and lowest compression.  I tried exporting my file to a TIFF format with no compression, but the resulting exported TIFF file photoshop would not open.  I then tried exporting with the same settings but with a zip compression and the file would open.  Is there a reason for that?

[walt.farrell]

31 minutes ago, Ryansamul said:

I then exported affinity image to TIFF with zip compression and no affinity layers and it opened both in photoshop and affinity, but there were no layers.  Beyond exporting all the layers as separate files, is there no standard format that I can export with layers?

TIFF files do not have layers, as part of their format definition/specification.

They can have vendor-specific data, which is how Photoshop saves layer information into TIFF files when you ask it to, and how Affinity applications save Affinity layers into TIFF files. This basically gives you, from Photoshop, a TIFF that contains a PSD file. From Affinity applications it gives you a PSD that contains a .afphoto file, or a .afdesign file, or a .afpub file.

Affinity applications understand how to parse much of the PSD specification, so they can open TIFF files with PSD data (if they could open the corresponding PSD file). Very few applications other than Affinity understand Affinity files (.afphoto, etc.) so mostly other applications won't understand the Affinity data in a TIFF file, and will just show the image with no layers.

It is unusual that an Affinity program cannot Open a TIFF file (compressed or not) that had Affinity layers embedded. Something is wrong there.