Exporting & File Formats

Every prior chapter built up a finished, fully-layered editing project. This final technical chapter before the capstone covers getting that project out of the tool correctly — without losing the ability to keep editing it later.

Native Formats: PSD vs. XCF

Photoshop's own PSD and GIMP's own XCF both preserve every layer, mask, adjustment layer, and editing state fully — the "working file" format, meant for continued editing, not final delivery. A genuine interoperability gap is worth naming honestly here: opening a PSD in GIMP, or an XCF in Photoshop, works with varying and often imperfect fidelity, since neither company builds guaranteed, fully faithful native support for the other's own format.

Export vs. Save

Save/Save As keeps the native, fully-editable format intact. Export instead creates a separate, different-format file specifically for delivery or use elsewhere — Photoshop's own "Export As," GIMP's own "Export As." Conceptually identical in both tools: the native working file stays untouched, and a new delivery file is generated alongside it.

Web-Ready Formats: PNG vs. JPG

PNG is lossless, supports transparency, and produces a larger file size — best for graphics, logos, or anything needing a transparent background. JPG uses lossy compression, produces a smaller file size, and has no transparency support at all — best for photographs, where some quality loss is genuinely imperceptible at reasonable settings. A genuinely practical, common real-world decision point, not an academic distinction.

JPG Quality & Compression Artifacts

JPG's own lossy compression is adjustable — higher quality settings produce a larger file with less visible artifacting. Aggressive compression produces visible blocky artifacts, especially around hard edges and text, since JPG's own compression algorithm was originally designed around smooth photographic content, not sharp, hard-edged graphics. A real, common mistake: over-compressing a JPG containing text or sharp graphic elements, producing visibly ugly blocky artifacting around exactly those edges.

Flattening on Export

Revisiting Chapter 4's own warning box directly: exporting to PNG or JPG requires flattening, since neither format has any concept of separate layers at all. This is exactly why exporting a separate flattened copy — rather than flattening the actual working file — is the right practice, letting the export happen freely without ever endangering the original layered file.

Hands-On Exercises