Migrating: Photoshop (.psd)

Policy

PSD import follows the same shared policy documented in full on the OpenRaster guide: best-effort raster-safe subset, a data (not prose) fidelity report, source preservation of the original .psd as a role: "master" blob, and content-based (magic-byte) detection rather than filename sniffing.

Scope

Per design D7, PSD import reads via ag-psd (chosen specifically because it runs without a canvas dependency — this format's decoders are DOM-free by design, see Worker API):

• Raster layers — composited layer image data, groups, opacity, and masks map onto the native layer model directly (mapped).
• Blend modes map through a dedicated PSD→native table (below) — since packages/blend's 27-mode vocabulary already targets Photoshop compositing semantics, this mapping is "mostly identity," not a lossy reinterpretation.
• Adjustment layers, smart objects, and text are the PSD features this importer does not attempt to reproduce faithfully — each degrades or drops per-layer, with the specific feature named in the fidelity report (never a blanket "PSD partially supported" without saying what).

Blend-mode mapping (generated from import-pipeline)

@faceless-photolib/import-pipeline's mapPsdBlendMode implements this table, keyed on the exact lowercase, space-separated strings ag-psd uses. It is rendered from that exact code at build time:

PSD blend mode	Native mode	Verdict
normal	normal	mapped
dissolve	dissolve	mapped
darken	darken	mapped
multiply	multiply	mapped
color burn	colorBurn	mapped
linear burn	linearBurn	mapped
darker color	darkerColor	mapped
lighten	lighten	mapped
screen	screen	mapped
color dodge	colorDodge	mapped
linear dodge	linearDodge	mapped
lighter color	lighterColor	mapped
overlay	overlay	mapped
soft light	softLight	mapped
hard light	hardLight	mapped
vivid light	vividLight	mapped
linear light	linearLight	mapped
pin light	pinLight	mapped
hard mix	hardMix	mapped
difference	difference	mapped
exclusion	exclusion	mapped
subtract	subtract	mapped
divide	divide	mapped
hue	hue	mapped
saturation	saturation	mapped
color	color	mapped
luminosity	luminosity	mapped
pass through, linear height, height, subtraction	normal	degraded

pass through is a group isolation setting ("don't isolate — blend children with the layers below the group"), not a per-layer color-blend function, so it has no honest home in a per-layer blend-mode field; linear height, height, and subtraction are newer Photoshop modes with no equivalent in the native 27-mode set. All four degrade to normal rather than guessing a nearest match.

Corpus samples

Every PSD fixture in the sample corpus — the bit-depth/color-mode/group/mask/ blend-mode matrix, plus the hand-authored degradation cases — is served through the same /api/samples/<id> proxy every other demo on this site uses; no direct storage URL ever appears in this page. "Open in editor" runs the real import pipeline end to end, fidelity dialog included.

Samples — import-psd

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