Hello! I was working on a file, saved it is psd, today I opened it again, resized and saved by mistake, old file was overwritten. I did try a recovery software to get the old file back, but it says file is not compatible with this version of photoshop.
Is there anyway to get my old psd file back?

Thank you for your time.

Milla

I keep checking here to see if you've had an answer because I would also really like to know if it's possible, I've done this more then once, it's very frustrating...

Hi Lucie! I know it's very frustrating, I spend 2 days working on something and lost it with just 2 clicks. I did search everywhere for hours yesterday. Some people say you can look for a temporary file it suppose to start with ps_ and end .tmp
You can rename tmp to tif and get the file back, but the psd layers will be merged. Others suggested to use a recovery software, I did get the file back, same name, same size but it won't open. Giving me some error like "not compatible with this version" like if you try to load brushes to an older version of photoshop.

So I guess there is no way to get the file back, photoshop already take a lot of space with their scratch files, could at least keep the files there until photoshop is closed or have some sort of history even after the file is closed.  Maybe sometime in future.

What version of photoshop do you use?  I wonder if you tried opening it with another version?*

*photoshop already take a lot of space with their scratch files, could at least keep the files there until photoshop is closed or have some sort of history even after the file is closed.

Yes, I've thought about that before, it sure would be nice.  Maybe that would make slightly bigger files, but there could be some sort of option if you want to save with the history or without...  Adobe should hire us to give them some ideas, hey?  ;)

I have photoshop 7, cs3, cs4, I did try to open it with all 3 versions I have and it still didn't work.
I have one program called camtasia, is great to record screen or edit video files and then save them in many formats. This program keep video files in temp folder until you restart your computer, they also give option to clear the temp folder when you really sure you have saved all you need. Happened many times this program saved me a lot of time when I was making mistakes. Would be great if adobe did the same for photoshop and illustrator.  But I guess they never care about what we need. And I am sure we are not the only one who make this mistake, saving files like this, not to mention when photoshop just crashes during saving.

 I know this doesn't help this situtation, but I've done so many dumb things on my computer I finally decided that those people that say "back-up, back-up...." may have a point.  But you also have to have some plan during your work -- not just a backup at the end of the day.

I'm working on a covered bridge model in Lightwave.  I just did my 107th. incremental save.  It's so easy in Lightwave (Shift-s) that it's second nature now.  At the end of the day I zip up the versions and copy the zip to a different drive.

I guess a good question here is, is there an easy way to do incremental saves with Lightwave? Maybe an action or script?

Maybe someone here can offer up a good incremental file save solution that's easy to use.

No, I don't think photoshop does incremental saves...  What I've personally been doing lately is "save as" often instead of just "save" and give it another name, like illustration01.psd, illustration02.psd etc...  So I end up with like a WIP and if I screw up with illustration12.psd and save by accident, I can always go back to illustration11.psd.  I'm still loosing a bit of work if that happens, but not as much as if I just clicked save all the time and only had one copy or my work at its latest stages. 

This is truly unfortunate and I’m sorry that I don’t know of any way of getting your file back but You may be able to recover the file using a recovery program but I haven’t seen a free one online. I did come across this demo which seems like it might be able to tell you if the file is at all recoverable. Obviously if the demo brings back an unrecoverable file then you need not look any further. On the other hand if it tells you there is recoverable data there then you may want to invest in a recovery program if the file you lost means that much to you. There seems to be many Photoshop recovery programs online but I wouldn’t know which is best. I understand that when one puts their hard work into a project it is a crime to let it go without any attempt at retrieving it. Have you emailed anyone in Adobe about this? As a last resort I certainly would give that try.

The demo: www.officerecovery.com/photoshop/download_demo.htm
Read "Demo Explained"

They do have an auto save program for PS here: www.atopsoft.com/products/autosave/ About $20.00 USD.

Good luck!

Hi Quest! Thank you for your reply. I did try 3 recovery programs, full versions that I have for some time. Those programs are great to recover pictures and videos back only. I did recover psd file I have lost and it was same size but won't open in any version of photoshop I have. I also did try psd recovery software and no luck. I did ask Adobe about it in forums and only thing they said that they don't know any way to recover overwritten file.

Thank you for auto save program, I am downloading it right now :)

Milla

I’m sorry Milla…you did say that didn’t you? I just didn’t catch on because you said “others suggested to use a recovery software…” now it’s obvious to me that you did. Sometimes I just don’t know where my mind goes.

Have you tried opening it in another program other than Photoshop, such as Painter maybe or some other program that can open Photoshop’s PSD format? If you right mouse clicked on the file in Windows Explorer and selected “Preview” which program is set as default to open PSD?  If it’s NOT Photoshop try doing that and see if it opens. If you own or know of someone that owns a Mac, see if it can be opened there. You may have to change the extension to tiff but try both ways. Of course if you do manage to get it opened then it must be resaved. Again, I’m sorry for your troubles but it sounds like the file may be corrupt.

Here’s a free program that’s supposed to recover PSD file but then I guess it saves either the file to jpg or saves all the layers to jpg…I don’t know which. But if you decide to try this please scan the file first with your anti-virus since I’m not familiar with the site. Again…good luck!

www.topshareware.com/Flobo-PSD-Recovery-download-14125.htm

 there is no way that i have found to get the file back once you close it.

i have been able to undo a  major OOPS!  of "saving" a file when i meant to do a "save as", but that only works if you have not closed the file.

REVERT won't work cause that just brings you to the last save and that's what the problem is. 

What i did was to go back in the HISTORY of the file to "undo" the save - the trade off was that i lost the work that i just did. but that was better than losing the original file...

it would be nice to find an alternative...

scott

I know this doesn't help with this situation but if you're making major changes and saving often it may help in the future.  Always affix a number to the name of the picture.  When you've just finished making a change and saving change the number from xxx.01 to xxx.02 etc and save a second time under the new name BEFORE you make the next change.  That way if you hit save rather than save as once a change has been made you're saving to a new file anyways.  If you hit save instead of save as while you should be making the new file, no change has as yet been made so you're just resaving the same picture version.

For working out troubles like issues you may try photoshop recovery. Which is able to help in almost every complexity situation connected with corrupted or lost psd files. It has many various features allowing to work out given issues.