Tiff vs PSD

[charlie]

I use Lightroom and Photoshop for cataloging and post processing images. When shooting tethered I use Capture One as well. These are my 3 photo editing related programs.

Lightroom by default converts to 16 bit Tiff when opening raw files in photoshop, my question is what is the benefit to converting to Tiff in this environment as opposed to 16 bit PSD?

A D800 NEF turned 16 bit Tiff with a few layers in photoshop can quickly turn into a 2GB file for a single image where as a PSD is about half the size. I prefer not to flatten layers in the event future adjustments are required. I suspect Tiff files are more widely supported across different programs but if I am not using said programs, and since a PSD could always be converted to Tiff if need be, where is the benefit to the added file size? Is there a quality difference?

I don't necessarily feel the need to switch to PSD, I've just always been curious.

[Bjørn Rørslett]

If the post processing is tricky or requires a lot of layers and other PS wizardry, keeping a PSD version with these layers is advantageous. For other purposes, just flatten the PSD and save it as a 16-bit TIF. Do use the widest possible colour space for your file be it TIF or PSD.

For sales one usually delivers high-quality jpgs in the approx. print size anyway. Then it is a definite time-saver to pull a processed TIF from the archive and do the extra steps to get the optimised jpg and save it in the colour space specified by the client.

[Erik Lund]

As Bjørn states - I will just add, make sure your display is 'up for it' if you deliver 16 bit files to the print shop,,,