CS3 can’t open recently created psd file, error

[David Johnson]

It sounds like one of two things and I hope it’s as simple as this first one: Are you sure you didnt create the PSD with a newer version of Photoshop than the one you’re trying to open it with? If that’s the case, all you have to do is take it back to the machine where you created it.

If that’s not the issue, I hate to say it, but you may have a corrupt PSD file. If you experienced any unusual computer issues during or before saving the file, that could cause it to be corrupted. I’ve heard of and tried various ways of salvaging corrupt PSDs, but I personally have not had any success with any of them … although I haven’t tried in years since I have for a long time now have been in the habit of saving multiple copies of my work on various drives, etc.

[Katherine Rosing]

It was definitely created on the same machine, same version (CS3) and was created just one week earlier. I was lucky to find that the rest of the files were ok.

I did try two freeware and shareware programs, but neither worked. One could recover some background layers, that were very basic, but the main image file was completely corrupted. I also tried opening it in other graphics programs but could not.

I finally went back and recreated the file. It is possible that I had a crash while saving, or around the time that I saved. I remember that my hard drive was pretty full and I can’t remember if I cleared things off before creating this file or after. Hopefully it will not happen again! I have never had this problem before.

Thanks!

[David Johnson]

I hope it never happens to you again and, to that end, a couple pieces of advice most people I known have had to learn the hard way:

As you deduced yourself (and I’ve witnessed consistently throughout almost 20 years), even if it takes hours, re-creating lost work is a better use of time than relying on the various apps that claim to repair Photoshop files … if it were that easy, why wouldnt Adobe just buy the technology and incorporate it into Photoshop itself?

Better yet, just open up your backup file and keep things moving. In other words, make saving and backing up your work such an intuitive part of your workflow that you do it naturally without even thinking about it. I realize I’m overstating the obvious, but the unfortunate fact is most people have to have several experiences like yours before they finally say “never again!!!” and do that.

Remember that all hard drives need unused space for system files, etc. so a nearly full hard drive frequently causes problems. Drives are cheap these days … I’d suggest using several drives for your work instead of one huge one … if you have a good workflow and are diligent about backing up, a corrupt file or failed hard drive is no big deal. There is even the option of backup software that will copy everything on your drive to a second one on your defined schedule.

[Bram History]

I think it may worth to try some programs before start all over again.
I have same problem, my psd files unable to open with same reason as mentioned above, “Could not complete your request because the file is not compatible with this version of Photoshop”.

I tried to open in another computer and with different photoshop version (7 and CS), and all of them failed to open it. I read similar problems in forums and no solution works for me.

Losing my hope, I start to think to re-creating. Then I remember another graphic programs I used, SAI Paint tool. PaintTool SAI is a lightweight software focused solely on painting and drawing, and its able to open other graphic programs like photoshop and such.

I give my shot and try open my broken psd files in SAI and it successful! After that I tried to save that psd files under different name, open it in my photoshop cs4 and I got my psd files working successfully without anything miss. Now I’m continuing my works without re-creating the whole things.

I don’t know if its works on your case, but I just want to share my experience for future records.
And also, sorry for my broken english. Not my native language so … yeah … 😛

[Troy Brodsky]

Heyas everyone!

This isn’t a perfect fix, but it may save you a few hours or days… or even just a little bit of hair that you don’t yank from your skull.

I just had this happen to me using OSX Mountain Lion (CS3) doing a 1GB poster for a local high school. About 40 layers at the point where I quit and came back to it… only to find it “not compatible.” Oy.

I tried resaving, tried it on a different machine, tried swapping the suffix to psb format (Photoshop Large Format) thinking that maybe it was borderline ‘too big’ for a psd. Zip. Nada.

So, I tried to open it with simple Preview. (For you windows folks, that’s just the default image viewer for Mac – I’m not sure what it is in Windows land, but it’s nothing special.)

It did open, and despite the fact that my layers were gone… I DID have a high quality image file of the poster. It’s not perfect, and I’ll have to be creative in putting things back together… but it’s also not a ‘do it all over’ scenario.

Procedure: Open the file with Preview, export it (this is just “save as”) to a new name, and then reopen in Photoshop.

And then… repent for not running your Time Machine, or backing up your file. (I’m repenting now.)

Cheers!

Troy
troy@pathogenink.com
https://www.pathogenink.com