# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > Software Discussion >  How to recover an older version of a Photoshop doc?

## Janden

Okay, so I was working on this map of a massive city that came to 5000px wide at full size. Along the way I've been resizing the image down to 1800px so I can take snapshots of the progress that are just big enough to make out the details. My problem is that after my last resize for the latest snapshot, I forgot to undo it to get it back to the full size and I accidentally saved over it. I did enough small edits by the time I caught it that I couldn't undo enough to get back to that point.

Does anyone know of any way to recover a previously saved version? I'm on a Macbook Pro and I haven't turned my computer off or shut down Photoshop yet.  :Feeling sick:

----------


## Larb

Ouch. Does File -> Revert work? I don't use the function much so it might restrict it to the last thing in history.

----------


## Janden

> Ouch. Does File -> Revert work? I don't use the function much so it might restrict it to the last thing in history.


It only takes me back to the one previous save before this one. I'm guessing the one I want is probably 3 or 4 saves back. From what I understand, as long as I don't close out PS, there should be a version saved on the scratch disk, but I'm not having any luck finding if I can get to it. I looked in the PS preferences and found the location of the scratch disk (basically it says it's just on my hard drive) but don't even know what to look for.

----------


## Larb

I had a look around and I cannot seem to find anything of any help. Also I use photoshop on a PC and I've never really looked at the specifics of scratch disks.

All I can recommend is some heavy googling before you decide to write it off.

----------


## Janden

Yeah, I've managed to find the command line that enables me to see hidden files and folders, so I can now get into the tmp folder, but there are like 3 files in there. I don't get it. Everything I'm seeing says that the Mac will saved a bunch of tmp files while you're working and the folder gets cleared whenever you restart the computer (or close PS). I haven't done either of those things, kinda because I'm holding out for a solution. Thanks for your help, though.

----------


## DevinNight

If you are using time machine it does a backup every couple hours, so you can get previous versions that way. 
As a habit I save my file with a different name ever couple hours, just in case a file gets corrupted. 
I've done what you have done though. You might try making the file the larger pixel dimension to see how much it was degraded, I've been pretty impressed with how well PS rescales images, even from lo- to high res.
Sorry I don't know of any cure.

----------


## Chashio

> You might try making the file the larger pixel dimension to see how much it was degraded, I've been pretty impressed with how well PS rescales images, even from lo- to high res.


Me too. Or you could try this: http://www.ononesoftware.com/product...FQlN4AodSkkY0g  I haven't tried it myself, yet, but you could give the free trial a spin and see what happens. I'd be curious to see the before and after if you do.

----------


## johnnyrommys

Make use of foto recovery from SD cards, XD cards, Compact Flash, USB drives and storage devices, Digital Cameras, Floppy Disks.

----------

