PSP X6 wont open, says file not valid

[zhunter71]

I spent hours a couple of days ago working on a pspimage file, saved it without any issue, etc, and today i have gone to open it and it says file not valid

I've attached some screen shots showing that it does appear perfectly in the preview pane, it is saved as a pspimage file

i've never had this happen before and am worried about it happening again and losing more work

anyone know why it does this and how to get this opened up?

I have tried renaming the extension to jpg (on a copy of it) and it came up with the same error

[splash3313]

Can you upload so we can all test file?

[splash3313]

It could be a corruption but without fully testing we won't know, I say that as it looks like you have saved to an external device as C is usually the hard drive. Another solution that could possibly work put file on hard drive see if that works. Another solution is to try xnview mp and irfanview to see if they can open the file. The problem is if you are using unsupported software on windows 10 or 11 you will find that these these can happen. The version you are using is ancient. Personally if you can see a thumbnail of it, it should be readable. Have you tried in the latest Paint Shop Pro. Personally I would use a tiff or png or psd format. If you upload it we could take a look and see if it can be fixed.

[zhunter71]

i tried uploading it but its too large, so i';ve tried this way, i hope it works, i've sent it via wetransfer to myself to create a download link

https://wetransfer.com/downloads/38fded ... 303/060464

I have tried it on xnview and irfanview, both seemed to preview it but neither would open it

I know X6 is ancient lol but i like it, it does all i tend to need, i know i should update at some point

Just a quick update, it just did it again on a file i was just working on, i created the pspimage file, saved it, then flattened all the layers, saved that to JPEG. At that point i tried to reopen the pspimage file off the HD and it gave the same error, so i used UNDO on the jpeg and resaved the image again with layers intact as pspimage, did the process again and this time it opened without error, its rather worrying its started doing this, its never done it before in the years i've been using it

[LeviFiction]

Hello zhunter71,

The reason the thumbnail works is because one of the first parts of the file is a flattened thumbnail representation of the image. So whatever is causing the format to be read as invalid happens after the thumbnail portion. I don't have my PSP format reader on this computer but I do have it at home if no one else comes up with a good solution by that time I'll be able to report back on what I"ve personally found.

Quick question, are you using Text objects in your image? If so do you get this same problem if you convert the text to a raster or save an image without text?

Another option you might consider trying is saving for an older version of PSPImage format. When you go File -> Save As in the Save As dialog you'll see a button labeled "Options". When you click that button it'll bring up options for the save format. Under Version try setting it 1 version backward. For example in PSP 2022 it has its own new version format. And one version back would be X8-2021. I imagine X6 would be X5 but I don't have that version installed so I can't check. But you get the point. See if saving to an older format version helps.

[LeviFiction]

Fun note: the latest version of GIMP can open your image.

[zhunter71]

Fun note: the latest version of GIMP can open your image.

it does indeed! i just tried that, is there any way to get it back into a PSP file from GIMP? I see it saves as standard XCF file and some other formats, but none of the formats seem to be types that Paintshop pro will read

But it is odd, why would GIMP open it without error, yet PSP cant? very bizarre!

[zhunter71]

Fun note: the latest version of GIMP can open your image.

one thing i have tried is copying each layer and pasting it into Paintshop pro to rebuild the image, this works as long as you are selecting complete rectangles, etc, if you select a short coloured line when you paste it into PSP the background is always black, i cant seem to change that, is there any way to copy just the line in GIMP with a transparent surround so only the line pastes back into PSP?

[LeviFiction]

The reason GIMP can open it while PSP complains is most likely because of how the format works. PSPImage files are written in blocks of information. Each block has a very specific format that needs to be followed. In the file format specification it tells 3rd party developers that if they encounter a block they can't use or don't know how to read, to skip over it. GIMP cannot use every feature that's saved into a PSPImage file so it ignores that information. While PSP will try to read and use it all. So if it encounters something unexpected it doesn't try to force it, instead choosing to throw an error and ending the read.

This suggests that the "invalid" parts of the file are in a block or chunk that PSP does read but may not be all that important to the file.

As for getting the file out of GIMP and back into PSP I have three possible options.

1) Export from GIMP as PSD (photoshop document) file. GIMP doesn't use Save As the same way other programs do. If you want to save in another format you need to use their Export options. But PSP should be able to read PSD files unless they include features that PSP can't read properly. But my computer is struggling under the weight of your file so I haven't tested this.

2) Export each layer as a PNG from GIMP and then load them back into PSP. There are ways to make this faster. Such as the following GIMP plugin and drag and drop import method in PSP.
GIMP Plugin - Export Layers - https://github.com/khalim19/gimp-plugin-export-layers
PSP - Open base layer, then select all the other layers and drag and drop them into the layers palette.

3) Use my Advanced Paste Script to copy and paste layers from GIMP back into PSP.

You're correct that PSP doesn't properly support pasting from GIMP because GIMP stores data to the clipboard in 4 main formats, only one of which PSP supports and that's a regular Bitmap. No transparency supported. But another format it does use is a PNG file. My Advanced Paste script can read these files and import them into PSP.

Advanced Paste Script Download

How this will work is like this you'll grab the first layer, and use the AdvancedPasteAsNewImage script to create the first base layer in a brand new file. Then each subsequent layer you'll use the AdvancedpasteAsNewLayer script. It should work.

[zhunter71]

levifiction:

Firstly i tried export as PSD, that failed to work, then i couldn't do the second one as Export as Layer wouldn't appear in GIMP as it was set to Export as PSD and i couldn't seem to reset it, i tried deleting the history, etc but that didn't do it

BUT!!....thirdly then your script for "pasting as new layer", worked a treat and i now have rebuilt my PSP file, that's amazing work, thank you so much for that!!! That's very much appreciated! Made it so easy to do that!