Working with Photoshop® Files

Overview

Adobe Photoshop is one of the world’s best known software applications and widely used in professional graphics, both in print and for web graphics. While there are some great Open Source bitmap editing applications like GIMP or Krita, sometimes Photoshop is still the only application that can be used in certain cases – especially in the pre-press world.

One of the sources of its power is the native PSD file format. A PSD file can not only hold image data, but is more of a large container which can include metadata, camera info, text, vector artwork, and more. Most other programs and formats only handle a small subset of its capabilities.

PSD Import

Scribus does have its own native capabilities to import PSD files from version 6 and earlier – the latest version of the PSD format which is publicly documented. The Scribus Team has also been able to worm some features out of files created with later PS versions, so most PSD files can at least be loaded into Scribus, but they may have file format features which are not supported.

In general, PSD support is quite extensive, including:

Potential Issues

Specialties


Duotone import: Scribus will indicate the Duotone “color space” in the import dialog (top) and load used spot colors into the color list (bottom right).
In the Image Effects dialog, the “Duotone” effect will be activated automatically (bottom left).

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