There are many tutorials available on the internet about Sketch to PSD conversion, as well as conversion tools to do the job.
And many reasons for converting, instead UX/UI designers use these tools like Figma, Sketch, and Adobe XD, etc to do their job more efficiently and fast. After a long time for being used for other purposes, Photoshop comes back now to its core purpose, photo editing.
However, when you want to convert a sketch into a Photoshop file [PSD], it doesn’t work. I know what you’re thinking, why would someone convert a Sketch file into a Photoshop file. Isn’t this stupid and kinda backward thing?
Well, you’re right, it is. There are still hundreds and thousands of companies that still use Photoshop as their primary designing tool and they’re not familiar with Sketch yet all ready to use it. Just think for a while you come to work in their office, using your favorite tool (Sketch), and then when you just about to finish up your project, and they ask for a PSD file. PSD what?
That’s something that happened to my friend last year when he started his job at a big designing company. And there the company wants him not only to design in Photoshop and want the PSD files but also want them fully editable. Cool, uh!
The popular way for Sketch to PSD conversion among today folks is the Affinity Designer.
Are you looking for PSD to WordPress Conversion? Feel free to contact us regarding your inquiry.
1. Affinity Designer
This conversion method is a quite famous workaround and is described in detail by Cygnis Media in their article. So, here it is:
- Copy our Sketch artboard
- Paste it directly in Affinity Designer by selecting File > New from Clipboard
- Now, head over to file again and click File > Export and Export as PSD
- Boom! You’re done. You can open your file in Photoshop now
It’s a quick and efficient method, but have so many issues. Let’s give a quick look at the pros and cons.
Pros
- You get a layered PSD file and it’s kind of respecting your layer nomenclature
- Because it’s a copy-paste, so, it’s easy to use
- Your design is ready and your conversion look exactly as you want
Cons
- You have to purchase the Affinity Designer to use this method.
- The text layers are flattered so, they cannot be edited in Photoshop
- This same thing goes for vector shapes, they are un-editable
- If your Sketch contains 300 artboards, you must have to export each of them manually.
So, everything is going well?
Well, not for me, anyway.
The majority of the designs made in Sketch are for mobile apps and web designs. In my case, it was for web design and I have text all over my website such as: in the header, captions, icons, footer, menus, and many more. How pleasant it will be if you get an editable PSD file in case you can’t change the text?
Well, there is another way. After researching insane, we started to try different ways:
- Export SVG/EPS/PDF file from Sketch, open them in Adobe Illustrator, then export it in a PSD file. Boom. The text layers are flattened again now
- Export SVG from Sketch, and tried to convert it into PSD through ImageMagick, but it doesn’t work. It flattens the complete SVG to one layer
- Then I did different analyses on Avocode, but none of them work for me.
I was getting insane and I was going to give up but, then I found the perfect solution to do this. Photopea.
2. Photopea
Photopea is a free online photo editing tool that supports files like PSD, Gimp, and Sketch. In a nutshell, you can call it Super-Photoshop as it’s free but web-based.
I found this tool by humbling across different forums, question boards, and Facebook Groups.
When I first opened it, I thought I can upload my file directly, but, it didn’t work. Despite this, I see an error message “ Not enough RAM”
So, it’s frustrating, Right
But, when I looked up at my file size: 56,4 Mo. For a Sketch file, it’s too much and quite heavy. So, I came up with this solution.
First, open your sketch file and export them in separate Sketch files.
Just group them, you don’t need to have the same artboard for the same file.
But, make sure your file gets under 10 Mo, it’ll work fine.
- Now open your Sketch file in photopea.com
- Once you open it click one File button and save it as PSD and boom, you’re done.
- Now open your file in Photoshop. All your artboards are there now and your designs remain the same and look perfect. You might need to do some changes to clean up your file.
This method is super-cool and works perfectly. But just like the first method, it’s not totally perfect. It has some pros and cons too.
Pros
- You get a layered PSD file and it contains all your artboards, masks, and nomenclatures.
- You’re able to edit your text layers! Cool.
- It’s free and open-source so, you don’t need to buy a license to perform this method. And it’s web-based.
- It’s super easy and effective
- It’s quick and effective.
Cons
- What about those Bézier handles aka Bézier curves? Even though it doesn’t happen in all cases.
- It’s a web-based tool, so this solution isn’t evergreen, You still requires an internet connection to do it.
- You’ve to break down your Sketch file into smaller files to make it work
Conclusion
It depends on your needs, you can use any of these methods for Sketch to PSD conversion. Personally, I like the second one. But, no one knows if this feature will still be available tomorrow?
Help us grow by sharing this Post!
