Did you know placing a blank, white layer atop a .PSD can cut the file size in half?

Photoshop can be an incredible tool at times, making or breaking an image with the plethora of features it offers. However, even as widely used as it is, there’s still much unknown to its userbase.

One such example is that by placing a blank, white layer on top of a .PSD file, you can dramatically reduce its file size. Creative Market recently shared a blog post in regards to this strange phenomenon. In it, they demonstrate how a white layer atop even a simple, layered PSD file can reduce the file size by almost half.

Admittedly, we were skeptical at first. But, lo and behold, after testing it out with a three-layer image, we were able to reduce the file size by over half with this method. Below is a screenshot showing the file size comparison.

Creative Market also notes that you can hide the layers, rather than using a blank, white layer. But if you’re working on a composition that has some layers visible and some not, it might just be better to opt for the blank layer.

The reason this reduces the .PSD file size is because when you save a Photoshop file, what’s also saved is a high-resolution preview, which can take up a great deal of space. By placing a white, blank layer over the image before saving it, you’re ridding yourself of the preview file size issue.

This, of course, means you won’t be able to see what the image is in Windows Explorer or Finder, but if you’re restricted for space, it’s a viable option that could potentially double your file storage space in an emergency.