Exporting *.kra to *.psd revealed severe compatibility issues when trying to open with other software (FireAlpaca and Medibang crashed)!

Support and Advice General Questions
1

Just to give some information on my System beforehand:
I am using the Krita 4.4.1 64-bit stable build on Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

I recently tried to transfer a drawing as *.png and *.psd file to a client as agreed so that they could still have access to layers and further work with the commission.
The client wanted to use it with Clip Studio Paint which to our dismay just refused opening it.
I checked back by trying to open the *.psd i created with Krita in Gimp, FireAlpaca and Medibang.
The results were even more catastrophic with FireAlpaca and Medibang!
Instead of not opening, both of those Apps crashed immediately!
Only GIMP was able to safely open the *.psd I created in Krita!
Imagine if my client would have used FireAlpaca or Medibang while still working on their own other projects! They could have lost their work too!

I didn’t give up though and I was able to find a hot-fix!
By first converting the *.kra file into an *.ora file then opening that *.ora file in GIMP and then using GIMP to export the *.ora file into a *.psd file worked!

And before anyone mentions to use instead *.ora:
None of the aforementioned Apps except GIMP are able to open *.ora files so that is only in theory a good option to share projects.

What I want to know now is:
Has anyone else tried exporting to *.psd with Krita and then tried opening it in other Software?
Is this a known bug? Because i couldn’t find another thread here with this topic
If it is a known bug are there any plans on fixing it? Seems like GIMP while also being open source has the better reverse engineered exporting algorithm so why not work from there?

2

Yes I frequently export to psd, since my client uses photoshop. I exported few files day before yesterday and the client has opened it easily in photoshop. I have not got any complaints yet. One of my friends has clip studio paint, I will try to ask them to open a psd file and check.

If you need you can add the psd file here for others to try. Does the file have any specific layers etc?

3

The only special feature i used was the colorize mask but i converted those masks into paint layers and then used the split layer function in krita to have each color flat organized in folders. So nothing too out of the ordinary and as i mentioned before it converted into a functioning psd just fine when using gimp.
however i noticed that the file size was considerably smaller when using gimp as compared to krita. The psd’s i made with krita were roughly 30MB in size while the one’s i made in GIMP were less than 7MB!

4

Without access to your actual file, it won’t be possible to figure out what’s going on. If it’s private, you can share it privately with vurian@gmail.com and I can take a look.

5

Hi

If FireAlpaca and Medibang! are not able to open these .psd files properly, maybe the problem is on these application side?

I mean, maybe the .psd file produced by Krita doesn’t cover 100% of PSD file format specifications and some data are not recognized by some softwares, but any application, whatever the file is provided, should be able to manage an invalid file format properly (ie: just do not open the file or ignore unrecognized data instead of crashing…)

Is the PSD file produced by Krita can be opened on Adobe Photoshop ?
Which version of FireAlpaca and Medibang! are crashing? All?

Concerning produced file size difference between Krita and Gimp, the .PSD file format is a very complex file format, in which many many type of information can be stored.
Looking official adobe specifications, there’s currently 93 different image resource type across 11 Photoshop versions (3.0, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, CS, CS2, CS3, CS4, CS5, CS6, CC)
And not even sure this specification is complete because ASL data seems to not be defined in this documentation.

Comparing produced files from Gimp and Krita, you might see that Gimp doesn’t export some information ? :thinking:
And, basically, doing a such conversion KRA(Kirta) > ORA(Krita) > ORA(Gimp) > PSD(Gimp), you might have some information lost in the process (especially because ORA file don’t manage all Krita specificity)

Another case could be, Gimp is not able to manage CMYK files, only RGB.
For example, if file has been produced from Krita as a CMYK 32bit float color space, converted to a 8bits RGB from Gimp that’s normal the size is smaller…
But that’s only an example, we don’t really know properties of your original file.

Not sure to understand why, in this case you had to use ORA file… ?

On my side I’ve made some test,.
Gimp is only able to open PSD file produced by Krita when PSD file is on RGB colorspace (8bits/16bits)
In other case, there’s a valid message (can’t open CMYK files for CMYK 16b files) or bad message (invalid end of file for CMYK 32b float files)

Grum999

6

I’ve downloaded and test FireAlpaca and Medibang

Both are able to open PSD produced by Krita, when PSD file is RGBA/8bits and/or CMYKA/8bits
Both crashes when trying to open PSD with other colorspace (16bits or more)

Don’t have Photoshop and can’t download it “for free” then, can’t check if PSD files produced by Photshop can be opened on these software…
If someone else have Photoshop, I’m curious of the result :slight_smile:

@torporus, can you tell us on which colorspace Krita files has been made?
If it’s not RGBA/8bits and/or CMYK/8bits, can you convert them to RGBA/8bits and/or CMYK/8bits and tell us if both softwares are able to open them?

Grum999

7

Also tried paint .net with PSD Plugin.

No problem to open all PSD files versions.

Grum999

8

I just sent you an e-mail supplying you with two dropbox links that lead to the psd/ kra files individually.

1 Like
9

Thanks! I’ll check it tomorrow morning!

10

I used RGBA/16bits integer and that seems to be the problem here.
After you mentioned the amount of bits i tried switching it from 16bits to 8bits and that seemed to do the trick for Firealpaca and Medibang. Looking into the properties of the ora and GIMP created psd looks like the conversion to ora already switched it to 8bit instead of 16bit which then explains the drawstic difference in file size and why the psd created by GIMP was also compatible with Firealpaca, Medibang and i am assuming also Clip Studio Paint.

1 Like
11

:slight_smile:

So, now just need a RGBA/16bits PSD file produced with Photoshop to test it with FireAlpaca and Medibang to ensure that problem is on software side and not from PSD file produced by Krita :slight_smile:

Don’t know if someone here have Photoshop to generate a PSD file for test…

Grum999

12

I have a friend who owns a subscription to PS.
I’ll see if they are willing to help out.

Also i wanted to thank you guys for reacting to this issue so quickly!

13

Ok so my friend just supplied me with a *.psd file with a few layers and some random squiggles.
Krita as expected has no trouble opening it:

krita test
krita test1950Ă—1331 541 KB

But FireAlpaca while managing to open the file created gibberish:

fire alpaca test
fire alpaca test1562Ă—1153 850 KB

And so did Medibang:

medibang test
medibang test2107Ă—1302 1.55 MB

Make of that what you will.

I have asked my client to help me out in this for future cases and i am awaiting his test results on the end of Clip Studio Paint.

This is just in! Clip Studio still refuses to open the 16 bit psd that was made in Photoshop!

clip studio psd test
clip studio psd test432Ă—290 3.5 KB

1 Like
14

So, I think you just have to convert your file to 8bits before doing export to PSD?
Client really need 16bit file?

Grum999

15

Luckily they don’t so this is basically solved now for me.
However i would suggest adding these findings to the Krita manual and maybe starting a Compatibility table of known issues.

Being able to look that up in the manual would be a great help for ppl coming across this same problem in the future!

:smiley:

1 Like
16

This is a good thought. If anybody is willing to make a contribution the page is here - *.psd — Krita Manual 5.2.0 documentation

17

I’m not sure that’s on Krita side that incompatibility of other software with some file format have to be identified…
There’s so many file format, so many image editor… and made combination of “Ok it works only in RGBA/8bits but not in 16bits” seems to be impossible.
Like finally all other features you can find in a PSD file…

You can already found a comparison of image editor on wikipedia

List is not complete.
Even with 75 listed software, FireAlpaca, Mediband and Clip Studio Paint are not listed…

Anyway, PSD page of Krita documentation is clear:

Due to .psd being used as an interchange format, this leads to confusion amongst people using these programs, as to why not all programs support opening these. Sometimes, you might even see users saying that a certain program is terrible because it doesn’t support opening PSDs properly. But as PSD is an internal file-format without online specs, it is impossible to have any program outside it support it 100%.

Krita supports loading and saving raster layers, blending modes, layerstyles, layer groups, and transparency masks from PSD. It will likely never support vector and text layers, as these are just too difficult to program properly.

Grum999

18

While i agree that it isn’t necessarily Kritas job to watch out for other softwares short comings, trouble like this can result in users abolishing krita over paid software simply because of the still widely spread belief that open source software isnt ready for doing serious work.

Being able to adapt to your clients wishes without doing hours of research in forums but instead being able to look up a solution in a manual is part of that. The more stream lined it is to find a solution for such problems the better!

I have have heard ppl (friends even) drop krita for less critcal reasons and if we already have this knowledge , why not use it as a start for something that grows over time into a database that is centralised in the manual or at least link that compatibility chart you found on Wikipedia in the manual. Personally i wouldn’t have looked at wikipedia for this information so a hint like that would be helpful in the manual too!

Also it’s not like we don’t have something like compatibility table already in the manual!
I am of course talking abou the tabket hardware compatibility table in the manual.
so what is stopping us fron starting something similar with psd compatibility?

19

But psd is industry standard so they are right either way.

If you give psd as a load instead of a import they expect full support nah?

This situation only reinforces my thoughts about this topic. When you load you imply full access and doing an import means a transition from one state into another.

But I am happy to see krita handles psd better than expected.

But this looks like Blender normal flipping situation all over again. I almost bet Ps itself messes up psd file created on other softwares too just like Autodesk did with my objs. It is not of their interest for other applications to open psds. While they are the top dog it will never work.

I still have not tested for painting apps it but I think something like EXR to a be better format in-between apps. Up until now it has not fail me and that would be my first pick out of the gate.

And Photoshop is freeware on that list? CS3 does make it freeware gawd.

20

My point of view is, PSD is one format from many other.
So I know PSD is like a “standard” for professional because most of them use Photoshop.

But Krita documentation about PSD file format is clear about compatibility: Krita does it best, but can’t manage all PSD specificities.

And if you take a look about PSD specification, you have more than 90 possible technical part in a PSD file, according to Photoshop version used to save a file…
Then, taking point by point what is compatible and what is not is really difficult.

And I’m not sure people read the docs :slight_smile:
And even if they read the docs, I’m not sure people will really understand all technical things related to file format…

Here the conclusion is, the problem is on professional paid software… :yum:
So I know that the first thing was “Krita is not able to produce a valid file” but as you saw, you’ve got a very fast answer, explanation and solution about the problem.
Can you tell us how long time it would take to have an answer from paid software facing this issue (as the problem is on their side…)? :slight_smile:

Need time and resources.
Also need some maintenance (what if if next version of CSP is able to open 16bit PSD files? need to update the documentation to tell 'this version works, this one not"?)
And I’m not the best to take a position about that, but I’m really not sure that’s Krita role to provide information about other software issues when everything is fine on Krita’s side

I’m so used to take a look on wikipedia when I’m wondering about something :sweat_smile:
But information in wikipedia is not always up-to-date, complete, or true (even if most case, when something is affirmed without any proof, this is noticed…)

Grum999