Export Options Don't Include PSB

[Kevin Sholder]

Lightroom Version Number

v9.2.1

Operating System

1. Windows 10

Any ideas why we can't export to a PSB file within Lightroom? The only options available are JPEG, PSD, TIFF, PNG, DNG and original. I'm currently running into some file size limitations with an image that I'm working on as a TIF. I could save the TIF as a PSB, just wondering why this format is not an option within Lightroom, that is if anyone knows. ;-)

 

[Victoria Bampton]

I suspect it's simply too specialized to warrant the engineering time. It's taken years to get import support for PSB added.

 

[Kevin Sholder]

I guess we will be happy with the fact then that it can at least import and support that Adobe file type. Thank you Victoria for the reply.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Lightroom can’t export a layered file, so I doubt there is any situation where the exported file would become too large for PSD or TIFF.

 

[Kevin Sholder]

Lightroom can’t export a layered file, so I doubt there is any situation where the exported file would become too large for PSD or TIFF.

Johan,

Can you expand on that please? Not sure I understand, as I can work on a TIF file with Layers and export that. But when it is originally exported it contains no layers. Or are you saying that layers are somehow built into the PSB format?

Thanks,
Kevin

 

[clee01l]

Can you expand on that please? Not sure I understand, as I can work on a TIF file with Layers and export that. But when it is originally exported it contains no layers. Or are you saying that layers are somehow built into the PSB format?

You won't export a layered TIFF from Lightroom Classic unless is is a preserved layered TIFF from PS. Then you are not exporting a derivative file but the original TIFF file sent to Lightroom from Photoshop. A PSB (Photoshop Big) file extension is an Adobe Photoshop Large Document file. identical to PSD except for size. Even My largest panoramas exported from Lightroom will export as a PSD or TIFF. Adobe appears to be downgrading PSDs in favor of TIFF Both are derived from the same TIFF/EP6 standard as it DNG.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Johan,
Can you expand on that please? Not sure I understand, as I can work on a TIF file with Layers and export that. But when it is originally exported it contains no layers. Or are you saying that layers are somehow built into the PSB format?

If you export a layered image (tiff/psd) from Lightroom other than ‘as original’, the file will be flattened. That means that exporting as PSB (if that were possible) would also flatten the file. Lightroom has a size limit (65,000 pixels on the longest side IIRC), so the largest file that Lightroom could possibly export is a flattened file of 65,000 pixels on the longest side. You do not need PSB to accomodate that. PSD will do fine.

 

[clee01l]

"More specifically, PSB files can be as large as 4 EB (over 4.2 billion GB) with images that have a height and width of up to 300,000 pixels. PSDs, on the other hand, are limited to 2 GB and image dimensions of 30,000 pixels"
https://www.lifewire.com/psb-file-2622193
From the Adobe site:File formats in Adobe Photoshop

 

[johnrellis]

Lightroom has a size limit (65,000 pixels on the longest side IIRC), so the largest file that Lightroom could possibly export is a flattened file of 65,000 pixels on the longest side. You do not need PSB to accomodate that. PSD will do fine.

A 65K x 65K 16 bit-per-channel one-layer PSB will take up to 25.4 GB, much larger than the 2 GB limit of PSDs or the 4 GB limit of TIFFs (65K pixels x 65K pixels x 3 channels x 2 bytes/chanel = 25.35 GB).

To double-check, in PS I created a canvas 64K x 64K (just to avoid buggy boundary conditions) and tiled it with an 8K x 5K photo. The saved PSB was 24.58 GB (64K x 64K x 3 x 2 = 24.576 GB).

In general, the largest dimensions of 3:2 16-bit image that a PSD can store is 22,360 x 14,907. (It could store larger dimensions if there are large areas all the same color, in which case the PSDs run-length encoding would losslessly compress the file.)

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Thank, John. I should have done that math! There is another Lightroom limit however, and that is 512 Mpixel. So the maximum file size that Lightroom can export is 512K x 3 x 2 = 3 GB. Too big for PSD, but not for TIFF.