Today’s Question: [In the context of the “Maximize Compatibility” option for Photoshop PSD and PSB files] What about TIFF files? Many people including me prefer to use this format.
Tim’s Quick Answer: You can think of a TIFF file saved in Photoshop as always having the “Maximize Compatibility” option enabled, with no option to disable it.
More Detail: Last week I answered a question about the “Maximize Compatibility” option in Photoshop for PSD and PSB files. Enabling this option will increase the file size substantially, but it will also ensure compatibility with many other applications, including Lightroom Classic.
In effect, you can think of a TIFF saved with layers in Photoshop as being the same thing as saving the image as a PSD with the “Maximize Compatibility” option turned on. In other words, in both cases the file will be larger than if the image had been saved as a PSD file with “Maximize Compatibility” turned off.
Because of the way TIFF files are saved in this context, there is nothing special you need to do to ensure compatibility, such as with Lightroom Classic. By contrast, if you save a PSD file with “Maximize Compatibility” turned off, you won’t be able to import that file into Lightroom Classic.
