Online help for Photoshop Recovery Toolbox

Photoshop Recovery Toolbox (download) is used to recover data from corrupted Adobe Photoshop files (*.psd files). Files corrupted as a result of various software and hardware failures or careless user operations usually contain the results of long and hard work done by one person or by a whole team. That is why the ability to recover this lost information and corrupted data turns out to be completely invaluable, especially for professional designers and photographers. You can read the instruction how to use the program and recover PSD files below.

Step 1. Starting the program

To start Photoshop Recovery Toolbox, click the Start button and select the application on the Programs menu (Start- Programs - Photoshop Recovery Toolbox). The main window will appear on the screen.

Step 2. Selecting the corrupted source file

Select the corrupted *.psd file on the disk on the first page of the Recovery Wizard. You can use one of the following ways to do it:

1. enter the name of the file and the path to it into the input field located in the center of the window;
2. use the standard dialog box opened with a click on the icon to the right from the input field;
3. select one of the previously used files from the drop-down list opened with a click on the button with a triangle on it in the right part of the input field.

Click the Next button in lower-right part of the window after you select the corrupted file.

Step 3. Analyzing the source file and viewing the structure of the corrupted file

After you select the source file and click the Next button, the program will start the automatic analysis of the source file. The program finds objects in the file, analyzes them and shows the structure of the file for the user to view it. The left part of the window shows a tree-like list where items correspond to the objects found in the file: header, properties and layers. If you select an item in this list, the table with its properties is displayed in the right part of the window.

After you view information about the structure of the file and items it contains, you can move on to the next step of the recovery process with a click on the Next button in the lower-right part of the window.

Besides, you can use the Send source file to developers button in this step. The current file will be attached to a new e-mail message (the default e-mail client will be used). You can also use the Send the source file button from the Actions section of the main menu. After the employees of the company receive the file, they will try to recover your data and also use this opportunity to improve the recovery algorithms. After that they will contact your as soon as possible and let you know about the results.

Step 4. Select the output file to save the data to

Select the output file to save the data to in this step. Selecting the file is similar to the process used in step 2. You can use one of the following ways to select the file:

1. enter the name of the file and the path to it into the input field located in the center of the program;
2. use the standard dialog box opened with a click on the icon to the right from the input field;
3. select one of the previously used files from the drop-down list opened with a click on the button with a triangle on it in the right part of the input field.

After you select the output file, use the Recover button to start saving the recovered data to the file.

Step 5. Recovering the data

In this step, Photoshop Recovery Toolbox reads identification data from the corrupted file and moves it to the output file. To make it more visual, the program logs everything it does in its operation log displayed in this recovery step. The time this process takes depends on the size of the file being recovered and the performance of your computer.

The demo version of the program adds random noise to the recovered data. To disable this limitation, you have to purchase the full version of the program. After the recovery process is over, you can exit the program by clicking the Exit button or you can get back to one of the previous steps using the Back button.