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> What if Photoshop doesn't just "save" a file, but writes several intermediate files onto the filesystem and does a bunch of file renames to create a "backup" of the original image.

Powerbox actually has support for this.

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Surely it can store files in a working folder of its own, and keep a reference to the original file. The other files don't need to live side-by-side

There is official support for auxiliary files in macOS/sandbox. A prime example is the use of SQLite in WAL mode which requires write access to $dir/my_db.sqlite + a bunch of other files in the same directory (for transaction handling etc). But this problem was solved years ago already because Core Data (an apple framework) actually uses SQLite under the hood.

Absolutely, but this then means if apps want to adopt some sort of sandboxing, they will quite possibly have to adopt or obey some rules. Sometimes app developers will refuse. Being pragmatic, what can be done then?

Observing the system calls apps make can be eye-opening and sometimes very sad.

Sure. But does / did Photoshop have its own custom file picker? Some apps or multi-platform frameworks (like QT) have rolled their own in the past.

No idea about Photoshop, but yes, I have heard of custom file pickers being nonfunctional inside of sandboxed applications.

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