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I have a design that was provided in Photoshop PSD format, and I want to modify the design, but I don't have Photoshop.

How can I modify PSD on Linux?

Migrating from PSD to SVG is the best solution if there are tools for this. The design does not need to be saved back to PSD.

  • Free, ideally open source
  • Runs on Linux
  • No or minimal design information loss
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You can use GIMP (PSD format is documented) although you might lose some information in the process such as:

  1. Layer comps
  2. Layer effects (shadow, glow, etc)
  3. Vector objects
  4. Layer masks
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    Too obvious how it meets the other specified requirements: Free, Open-Source, runs on Linux – everybody knows Gimp does :) I second this recommendation (+1). – Izzy♦ Jul 9 '14 at 6:11
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    Oh, just as an aside, GIMP is not great at handling CMYK - so if your PSD is in that, convert it to RGB first if possible.. – Elliot Reed Jul 9 '14 at 8:41
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Unfortunately, Gimp is not suitable for working with 9x% of graphics professionals. It will not open many PSD files at all, and gets the colors and layers info wrong on some that it will open.

The closest thing to a 'solution', of which I am aware, is to use a Virtual Box running Windows. Even an old XP-compatible (2006) version of Photoshop will open everything that has been thrown at me. Gimp hasn't caught up to that year in the PSD department, sadly.

Please someone tell me I am wrong, as I waste a lot of time with this setup.

--Edit

Further digging found this:

psd to png - software or website that converts all the components?

... indicating you can use imagemagick's 'convert' command to pull out all the layers separately. This is better than nothing, though if you need to capture a select-set of layers, together, in context, YMMV.

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If you are intending to work with SVG files, you should use Inkscape (even on Windows). It is a vector editor built around the file format.

Inkscape can't take .PSD file formats - for that you can either deal witht he subset supported by GIMP, as pointed out in other answers, or try oppening then in Krita (though I don't know how their support for PSD is - it should at least open CMYK layers)

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  • I use Inkscape all the time. But here the design was provided as PSD. – Nicolas Raoul♦ Jan 5 '15 at 1:29

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