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Someone sent you a .psd file and you don't have Photoshop. Welcome to the $660-per-year paywall of modern graphic design. PSD is the format designers live in — every layer, every mask, every adjustment, every smart object and vector path, all preserved in a single file that Photoshop reads perfectly and everything else reads with caveats.
PSD files are large because they store the complete editing state of an image — not just what you see, but every decision that led to it. A final poster might be 10 MB as a JPG but 500 MB as a PSD because it contains forty layers, twelve adjustment layers, and a dozen linked smart objects. This is the point. PSD is an editable master file, not a delivery format. You work in PSD, you deliver in JPG, PNG, or PDF.
Affinity Photo ($70, one-time purchase) opens PSD files with impressive fidelity and is the best value alternative to Photoshop. GIMP (free) tries — it handles basic layers but struggles with advanced features. Photopea (free, web-based) is genuinely impressive for a browser tab. For just viewing a PSD without editing, most modern OS image viewers can render a flattened preview.
* Limited layer support