How do I open a PSD file without Photoshop?

Do you need to see it, or to edit it?

A PSD is Photoshop’s working file: layers, masks, text and effects, plus (usually) a finished, flattened copy of the picture. What you want to do with it decides the tool:

Open a PSD in your browser

1. Drop the PSD (or PSB) at the top of this page, or click Select File. It opens at once.
2. Turn, mirror or crop it if you need to, or resize it.
3. Pick PNG, JPG, WebP or PDF and click Download.

Tip: PSD files up to 200 MB open in your browser and are never uploaded, so a design you haven’t published yet stays private.

What happens to the layers?

They are flattened: you get the picture exactly as all its visible layers look together, the way Photoshop shows it, as one image. Hidden layers stay hidden, and text becomes part of the picture.

To get each layer out separately, or to change the text, open the PSD in Photopea (free, in the browser, close to Photoshop) or GIMP (a free app for Windows, Mac and Linux, which opens PSD layers but may change layer effects and text).

Why a PSD can look blank or wrong outside Photoshop

Photoshop can save a flattened copy of the picture inside the PSD, so other programs can show it without understanding every layer. Adobe calls the option Maximize PSD and PSB File Compatibility (Edit → Preferences → File Handling on Windows, Photoshop → Settings → File Handling on a Mac), and explains that it lets other applications read the file (Adobe Help).

If the PSD was saved with that option set to Never, it holds only the layers and no finished picture. Programs other than Photoshop, ConvertKitty included, then show a blank or incomplete picture. The fix is on the designer’s side: open the PSD in Photoshop, set the option to Always, and save it again. Photopea can also rebuild the picture from the layers.

PNG, JPG or PDF?

We tested it: eight real Photoshop files

We converted six PSD and two PSB files to PNG together, in Chrome on a laptop: files with one or several layers, 32 bits per channel, a smart object, layer comps and masks. All eight were converted in the browser in 3.9 s in all. The one with a transparent background gave a transparent PNG.

Tip: Tested on 8 November 2026 with the test files of the psd-tools and Pillow projects. A large PSD of many megabytes takes a few seconds longer.

PSB: Photoshop’s large documents

A PSB is a PSD for very large pictures: over 30,000 pixels on a side or over 2 GB. ConvertKitty opens PSB files the same way. Very large canvases (hundreds of megabytes, tens of thousands of pixels) can be too big to open in a browser or to convert at all; in that case, ask for a smaller export.