Photoshop: 'Save with history'

It may seem rude, but I want to express my opposition to this request as I think the Photoshop team’s resources could be better employed.
If you »want to be able to undo some things after you close the file« I think you should use Layers, maybe Layer Comps and a general non-destructive workflow.

i ́m always workin in a non-destructiv way with layers n smart objects n all that stuff so that ́s not the problem.
but if u close some work the get a bit distance to it n reopen it later or out of which cause ever u closed it, it should be possible to work on it again like before just as an option that everybody can choose it or not. i know maybe it would bring up some remarkable higher files but don matter if everybody could decide on his own if his system is good enough for it or not or want to use it or not!

how come this idea is dumb when in case u r using third party ad-dons. Most of the people adhere to this idea of Non Destructive Workflow only but it has limitations too.

»One can lose hundreds if not thousands of strokes once a file is closed.«
You have set your History to more than a thousand steps?

»Arguments about laborious manual alternatives or RAM or disk space are ridiculous. Programmatically, the change is relatively trivial.«
What programming experience do you have that entitles you to make that assessment?

A variety, from various web, script, dynamically compiled languages to traditional compiled ones. But such experience is not required to see that if an application can provide history functionality in the current document, it can save that same history and restore upon reopening. It is essentially restoring a memory state, which is done by dozens of applications.

What you're asking for is more like saving an OS VM state to disk so that it can be loaded again later. It is possible, but it far from a trivial change and the files would be huge.

PS already does it. Why is a layer different than a history step in this regard? PS could require you to flatten the image or throw away inactive layers to save image size, but it doesn't because that would be dumb. I said "relatively" trivial, given the programming army behind PS. But PS already writes a history step to memory. What's so hard about writing that step to disk, then restoring it upon open? It would not have to restore the entire contents of OS memory, just whatever that document is using. Of course file size would go up, but I suspect by far less than some are suggesting. Most picture files would have several dozen history steps, max. PS allows you to set up to 1000 steps.

No, Photoshop doesn't do it. History saves the state of the entire document, not just a layer.

Now, I actually know the implementation, and the math, and am telling you that the file sizes would be huge. (and many users use all 1000 history states - and would want more if they were stored in a file for later use!)

What's difficult is matching up all the thousands of data structures that make up a document and it's history states and making them work correctly again after reloading.

It is really not that simple - and trying to claim that it is when experienced engineers are telling you that it is not... really doesn't help your case.

»But such experience is not required to see that if an application can provide history functionality in the current document, it can save that same history and restore upon reopening.«
Would this at the very least not necessitate a significant change to the psd or rather psb formats as psd’s size limitations would render it pretty close to useless for this?

Hii

» I'll retract the word "trivial",«
Well, that would seem to be something.

»but I have not been given any contradictory evidence, just blanket statements.«
So is the statement
»What's difficult is matching up all the thousands of data structures that make up a document and it's history states and making them work correctly again after reloading.«
really insufficiently clear?

»» I'll retract the word "trivial",«
»Well, that would seem to be something.
Now I'm tempted to retract my retraction.

»really insufficiently clear?
Yes. This is a generic statement which could apply, in its essence, to any number of applications. History is in storage already before the document is closed, it can be moved to different storage. Whatever method is used to match up data structures in memory can be replicated in the saved file.
Saved layers max: 8000
Saved history states max: 0
There. That's clear.

I've been roped into training Photoshop a few times. Lack of history saving has come up many times, with the same reaction every time: "Wha?".

Let's let this one go. Clearly, you feel the feature is not important enough, or too difficult, to implement. And I don't.

"Go to moon, pick up rock. How hard can that be?"

Darn. Defeated by the perfect analogy again. Chapeau.

Simply because I detest the troll thinking that some people allow themselves to fall into, I wanted to contribute that I think it is ABSURD to negate something that could be so useful to a significant majority of users simply because you find a particularly distasteful (i.e. large file size) attribute about it.  

Hell, since it is simply a history of commands, Adobe could simply have Photoshop rerun the commands when the file opens if said user opts for that annoyance.  If that is their desire and need, there is little reason not to allow it.  It would be THEIR time wasted (not wasted in their view) and the file would be the same size as they had before.

Christoph appears to be a troll as much as anything useful.

No, Photoshop history is not a history of commands - Photoshop is not a metadata editor.
History in Photoshop is a lot of pixel data (which is why it takes up so much scratch disk space), plus some metadata.  No, it cannot simply be played back -  Photoshop is not that simple, and the file really would be huge.

Well there is the problem. Now they can find a solution and make everyone happy. But just to ignore it (and it is an issue that can be solved) is lazy.

»Christoph appears to be a troll as much as anything useful.«
On what sample (of threads to which I have contributed) do you base that conclusion? 

Edit: 
»But just to ignore it (and it is an issue that can be solved) is lazy.«
Are you aware of the possible complexity of a seemingly simple thing like a brushstroke in a pixle based image editor? 

> Are you aware of the possible complexity of a seemingly simple thing like a brushstroke in a pixle based image editor? >

We all want do-overs in life.<G>

Has anyone talked about creating a new document from the current state, saving it as a separate file, then after closing the document you're working on, you can open both again and drag the history from the new document you saved off into the document you finished with, using the History brush to paint back with? You can do the same thing if you save a snapshot with merged layers, then save those snapshots you want before closing.

Maybe there's something there that Adobe can reasonably do to make saving these snapshot/documents easier at the end of the day. I don't know—target the snapshot (or better still, perhaps be able to target multiple snapshots) and go straight to Save As New Document, the way we save layers to files? We still have a responsibility to create the snapshots we think we might want to get back to, but if we messed up the face of our sitter, while the rest of the image was stellar, we could paint an intermediate stage back in from a saved snapshot, then fix just that, perhaps?

It wouldn't have to be all or nothing, where I highly suspect that means nothing, but just a little more convenient, no?

Hmm, saving snapshots (entire document states) is an interesting idea.
It's already possible to do manually, but I'm not sure if scripts or automation plugins have enough information to automate the process.

Could you write that up as a separate request topic?

Okay, I'll try to make sense of it. I know it can be done manually—but perhaps more out in the open and automatic would make it more convenient to use.

I know Affinity Photo does that, but not without making the file larger. How can you save an active history with all its states, such that you can continue to do/undo during another session without adding to file size? It IS optional with Affinity. You don't have to save every file with an active History, but file sizes can increase significantly, depending upon what you're doing.

I like the option. If you know you're still working on a file, saving it with History states active is helpful. It does have to be an option, though.