How to Recover Corrupt Photoshop PSD Files

‘A picture is worth a thousand words’, goes a saying. Photography is one of the fields that has been most affected by the increased reliance on computers in the modern world. Photoshop, a software used to edit and refine pictures, is a must have for any professional photographer. In this article, we look at how to recover lost and Corrupted Photoshop files.

Being one of Adobe’s most successful creations, Photoshop is popular among professional and aspiring photographers. With the right set of skills, a photographer can edit an ordinary picture using Photoshop and turn it into a masterpiece. Unfortunately, sometimes after putting in countless hours and effort into a project in Photoshop, it might get corrupted.

Corruption of files is relatively common in Photoshop and can be caused by one of many reasons including the ones below:

1. Improperly installed add-ons. Third-party add-ons which are either improperly installed or have bugs are one of the main causes of corrupted Photoshop files.
2. Interference from other applications. Other applications can be running in the background when saving is in progress and interfere with it. Processor intensive applications should be closed when not in use.
3. Accidental modification. One of the reasons why your Photoshop (.psd) file might not be opening is probably because it was not initially a .psd file. While browsing through your files, you or someone else can accidentally change the format of a different file to .psd.
4. Power problems. Power issues such as blackouts and power surges are also a known cause of corruption in Photoshop files. If a blackout occurs when you’re working or saving your psd file, it will most likely be corrupt or missing the next time you restart.

Power surges are also harmful to your disk and can cause it to lose some sectors.

When you realize that your files are corrupted, there are several ways you can try to recover PSD files:

1. Step one: Recovering from autosave

To solve problems like sudden shutdowns and unsaved files, Photoshop has an autosave feature. Autosave saves the work periodically as you continue to work on it. This feature is enabled by default but it’s important to check if it’s been accidentally disabled.

1. In Photoshop, open the File menu.
2. Click on preferences.
3. Under file handling, click on file saving options.
4. Check if Automatic save recovery is enabled.

If Autosave is enabled, locate the autosaved files in file explorer. The default path is C:/Users/Username/AppData/Roaming/Adobe/AdobePhotoshopcc*year*/AutoRecover/

Note that username in this case is your username and year represents Photoshop version.

2. Step two: Recovering from temp files

Adobe uses temp files to save work in progress. It is likely to find a copy of your work with the most recent changes in these files. To recover from these files however, you will need to remember your file’s name correctly.

1. Open the temp files folder in file explorer. The default path is C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Temp\
2.  Locate a temp file with a similar name to your lost or Corrupted Photoshop file.
3. Change the extension from .tmp to .psd.
4. Try to open the file.

3. Step three: Use data recovery software

If after trying the two methods above you still haven’t recovered your files, it means that they’re significantly damaged. Luckily, all you need is a data recovery tool like DataNumen PSD Repair.

Being the leading Photoshop recovery software, DataNumen PSD Repair is recommended by industry experts. It’s also very quick and easy to use, recovering most, if not all, of your work in minutes.