PS-SecureScan: Pre-Execution Security Analysis for Photoshop Image Workflows

Image files are commonly treated as passive digital assets; however, modern formats such as PSD, TIFF, JPEG and PNG are complex structured containers that require extensive parsing, decompression and metadata interpretation. In creative production environments Adobe Photoshop is one of the most widely used tools for processing such files, making it a potential entry point for image-based cyberattacks. Vulnerabilities in image parsing routines, metadata handling and decompression mechanisms have historically enabled remote code execution, denial-of-service attacks and covert data exfiltration. This paper analyzes cybersecurity risks associated with image processing in Photoshop-centered workflows and introduces PS-SecureScan, a pre-execution image examination framework designed to detect malicious or anomalous image files before they are opened in production software. The framework integrates structural validation, metadata anomaly detection, entropy-based steganography analysis, decompression risk estimation and sandboxed behavioral observation. Experimental evaluation using synthetic benign and adversarial image samples demonstrates that the proposed multi-layer analysis approach enables effective differentiation between normal creative assets and manipulated images. The results suggest that pre-execution image examination can significantly reduce the risk of image-based compromise in digital media workflows.