Recovering a psd file

#1

Hi all!

Working with CS2. Had a 50+ layer comic page layout with text layers, smart objects and such. Deadline tomorrow…
Saved yesterday. Today PS will not open the file but I can see the thumbnail preview…
Error:“Could not complete your request because the file is not compatible with this version of Photoshop.”
I’ve tried psd repair utility, which saved black images…(although it claimed successful repair)
Tried the tricks from adobe forums, opening the psd in image ready, Illustrator, Painter, AE… Only painter and image ready could open it but with empty layers… Tried to open a renamed copy as tif, tiff, psb, but still nothing.

Anyone can think of a solution?
Since the thumbnail image appears,could I at least somehow open a flattened version and recreate the rest?
Would truly appreciate any help…

#2

Just to be sure.
Do you have an older version of Photoshop installed?
If so maybe it tries to open it in the older version.
(Has happens to me.)
Just the other week I lost a couple of hours work when PS crashed.

Hope it works out for you.

#3

Which version did you use?
I must have a v6 and v7 somewhere around here.

Installed PS7.
Imported file, warned about smart objects, discarded them continued, but finally could not open it…

#4

What I mean was that if you have two versions of PS installed and just double click on the file it might open with the older (incompatible version) instead of the one you created it with.
If thats the case you should start the application first and open the file through it.
No magic work around. Sorry.

#5

Out of interest, were you working locally on your machine, or over a network? Photoshop can come up with the weirdest errors when working over a network - so much so that I stopped working over a network over a year ago.

As a last resort, I guess you could try reinstalling Photoshop, but frankly I think that’s unlikely to help. You could also try opening the file on a Mac - Mac’s Finder has a preview option for files, including PSDs.

#6

I was working on an esata Seagate 1TB free agent pro on a PC XP32.

I had the file open on PS for many hours.
I believe I saved the file but on shutdown somehow the drive must have went off, and PS crashed…
Today, the file is there but will not open. Zipping it, creates just a 3mb file! (25mb original). That says something.

A friend with CS3 on a Mac cannot open the file either…

Now I’m recreating the file in Illy,using a lousy screengrab from Bridge’s preview window as a template, and then will import individual drawings of panels as psd images, as I was doing in previous layouts.
It was just this time where I decided to use PS for the whole thing…

#7

I think the thumbnail is saved separately in a PSD file so having that is no guarantee of unrecoverable corruption in the real data.

Just want to take the opportunity to help us all learn from your difficulty:

Save early.
Save often.
Save with progressive version names.

#8

This may not be an option for you, but perhaps you could try posting the image somewhere and see if someone else is able to open the file and save off a (hopefully) working copy…? Just a thought.

#9

Thanks all for your replies.
As mentioned I’m recreating the file (admittedly much faster than originally), lost my deadline by a day and have informed the client in due time.

Its one of those times where omitting something simple causes a…
“series of unfortunate events”.
It is surely a user error, combined with Murphy’s law…
However, to avoid these ugly situations other applications, do offer an automatic iterative save option every x minutes like 3dsmax, and if I’m not mistaken even Adobe’s video apps like PP and AE.

#10

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