A note pinned to one .psd shows up only on that document. Open another file and it's gone — come back and it's there again, right where you left it.
A desktop sticky note bleeds across every file you touch. The retouch reminder for this comp sits next to the color note for a totally different one, and the crop you meant to fix on yesterday's banner is still cluttering today's hero. The note and the document it's about are never lined up — so you end up reading every note to find the one that matters.
A note binds to the document that's active in Photoshop. Switch to a different document and the note hides; switch back and it returns. TackNote reads the active document live, so the right note shows up for the file you're actually working in.
At tack time, you choose: is this note for this one document, or for all of Photoshop? Scope it to the file and it stays with that .psd. Scope it to the app and it rides along no matter which document is open.
Open TackBoard, see a note, click Reveal — TackNote opens the actual .psd in Photoshop. The note becomes the shortcut straight back to the document it's about.
Adobe Photoshop is a Deep-tier integration — TackNote scopes notes by document, reading the active document live via AppleScript, and reveals straight back to the file.
Bind a note to "this document" or "the whole app." Document-scoped notes hide on every other file; app-scoped notes ride along no matter which document is open.
Switch documents and notes appear and disappear on their own — no clicking, no managing. They follow the document that's active in Photoshop.
Notes, voice memos, and transcripts live encrypted on your Mac. No cloud, no account. Our only analytics is an anonymous version number, sent once on first launch.
Record a retouch note hands-free while editing, keep an export checklist with a live "N of M" tracker, or sketch a quick mark to fix on the comp.
Photoshop does not expose its open document to macOS Accessibility, which is why most tools that try to follow your work in Photoshop cannot. TackNote asks Photoshop directly instead, over AppleScript, and macOS requests a one-time Automation permission the first time.
TackNote requests the name of Photoshop's current document. That name is the note's anchor, so the note follows the document rather than the window, and stays put when you rearrange, tab, or float your panels.
Alongside the name, TackNote reads the document's file path, which is what lets Reveal reopen the exact .psd later. An unsaved document has no path yet, so it is scoped by name until you save it.
The Automation prompt appears once, for Photoshop specifically. There is no plug-in, no panel and nothing installed inside Photoshop itself. Illustrator works the same way, as do Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
This is worth contrasting with Affinity, which is the same kind of app but needs a completely different approach: Affinity does not answer AppleScript for its document, so TackNote reads its window title and parses the document out of it. Two image editors, two mechanisms, because the applications expose different things.
"The retouch note shows up on the right comp the moment I open it. Right where the work is — never lost on the desktop."
Yes. TackNote works with Photoshop CC and scopes notes to the active document, reading it live via AppleScript.
Yes. Choose "this file" when you tack the note and it binds to that document — Reveal opens or reopens that exact .psd in Photoshop.
An unsaved document has no stable identity yet, so TackNote scopes the note to the whole app until you save it. Once you save, TackNote offers to bind the note to the file.
Yes. Notes follow the Photoshop window wherever it is, including across multiple displays.
Yes — a 7-day free trial, no credit card required. After that, a one-time $24.99 license unlocks TackNote on up to 3 computers.
7-day free trial · No card required · Direct download · No App Store
Every note is sealed with AES-256 encryption the moment you write it — the key lives in your Mac’s Keychain, never on a server. Switch on iCloud sync and your notes are encrypted on your Mac before they travel through your own iCloud. Apple holds the keys to that sync unless you turn on Apple’s Advanced Data Protection, which makes it end-to-end encrypted and readable only on your devices. No accounts, no trackers, no servers we control. Not even we can read your notes.