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Someone sent you a .psd and you only need one layer, or need to check that the file is what it claims to be. Open it in the browser, look inside, export what matters.
At a glance
Files never leave your device
Drag the .psd onto the editor window. Parsing happens locally; nothing is sent anywhere.
The Layers panel mirrors the file: groups, blend modes, opacity, masks and adjustment layers, top to bottom.
Toggle visibility to isolate what you need, then export that composite as PNG or JPEG.
Details
These are the parts that actually change the outcome, not marketing copy.
The extension hides a container format: a header, a colour-mode block, an image-resource section, and then the interesting part — a list of layer records with a flattened composite at the end. Each layer record can carry its own mask, blending ranges, text engine data and vector paths.
Because the composite is stored separately, a PSD can look correct even when a layer fails to load. That is why "it opens but something is missing" is a common experience across editors: the preview comes from the composite, while the editable stack is reconstructed from the layer records.
Text layers reference font names, not glyphs. If the font is not available, the editor substitutes one and the layout shifts. PhotoPSD shows the text content so you can still read it, and the fallback keeps the layer editable.
Smart objects are the other frequent gap. A smart object wraps another document; without its source, its rendered pixels are all that can be shown. You can still move, scale and export it — you just cannot open the original inside it.
When you receive a design from a marketplace or a freelancer, the layer stack is the fastest way to judge what you got: is the typography still editable, are there real masks, or is it one flattened image with a nice filename?
Open the file, expand the groups, and look for text layers and adjustment layers. If everything is a single rasterised layer, the "source file" is not a source file.
What you give up with each route.
| PhotoPSD | Photoshop | Viewer apps | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Install required | No | Yes | Yes |
| Shows the layer stack | Yes | Yes | Sometimes, flattened |
| Edits and re-saves PSD | Yes | Yes | Rarely |
| File uploaded to a server | No | No | Often |
| Price | Free | Subscription | Free or one-off |
The PSD reader handles the PSB variant, which is what Photoshop writes above 30,000 px. Very large files are limited by the memory available to the browser tab.
The font used in the file is probably not installed on your system. The text stays editable, but the fallback font changes metrics and line breaks.
Yes. Edits can be written back to a layered PSD, so a quick fix does not force you to flatten the document.
A PSD is not a picture with layers glued on. It is a container with a header, colour blocks, layer records and a separate flattened composite — which explains most of its odd behaviour.
Layers are not stacked images — they are instructions evaluated bottom-up at render time. Once that clicks, masks, clipping and adjustment layers stop being mysterious.
A cutout is judged at the edges. How the selection tools differ, why a quick mask beats a hard selection, and the four-step edge routine that survives zooming in.
No install, no sign-up, no watermark. First load is about 14 MB, then it comes from cache.
Open a PSD