Today’s Question: Whenever I save a PSD file in Photoshop, I see a popup asking if I want to “maximize compatibility”. I don’t even know what this means, but is it something I should be doing?
Tim’s Quick Answer: You can prevent Photoshop from asking you whether you want to enable the Maximize Compatibility feature. If you want to be able to work with your images using anything other than Photoshop or Bridge then I recommend enabling the feature.
More Detail: The Maximize Compatibility option for PSD (Photoshop Document) and PSB files in Photoshop relates to the use of layers. The image and adjustment layers you add in Photoshop are proprietary to Photoshop, meaning other software isn’t able to render the image based on those layers. When you enable the Maximize Compatibility option the image is saved with a flattened composite image as the top layer. This enables other applications to see the image, even though that software can’t access the layers contained within it.
It is worth keeping in mind that enabling Maximize Compatibility will significantly increase the file size. For an image with only a Background image layer and some adjustment layers, for example, enabling Maximize Compatibility would result in a file that is about twice as large.
If you think there’s a chance you’ll ever work with your PSD files beyond Photoshop or Bridge, I recommend enabling the Maximize Compatibility option. For example, Lightroom Classic can only import PSD files that have the Maximize Compatibility feature enabled.
If you don’t want to be prompted about the Maximize Compatibility feature, you can disable the notification in the Preferences dialog. To get started, on Macintosh go to the menu and choose Photoshop > Settings > File Handling, or on Windows choose Edit > Preferences > File Handling. At the bottom of the File Compatibility section you’ll find the option for “Maximize PSD and PSB File Compatibility”.
With the popup set to “Ask”, you’ll be asked if you want to enable the Maximize Compatibility feature each time you save a layered image as a PSD or PSB file. If you don’t want to be prompted each time, you can change the setting to “Never” if you don’t want to use Maximize Compatibility and “Always” if you do want to use it.
