Power cut, retrieve lost work

No.

Get into a habit to saving regularly

Does CS2 have a temp file folder?

Also, are you using 10.8 and it's Versions tool?

Finally, how old is the previous Time Machine backup of the file?

I have one of these that I picked up for $25 from an office going-out-of-business sale. (Eventually, it needed a new battery, which was about $100.) Combined with one of these for my two monitors, I can power my Mac Pro, RAID tower and all peripherals for 45 minutes during a power failure before I reach the last bars on the batteries. I think they would go 50 minutes before running out. I experience enough power fluctuations and failures that it's well worth it. I can think of at least a dozen times I've kept on working while the house lights flickered or went dark.

Of course, regular saving and backup is key for critical work, but I think a UPS is required for a desktop system, unless you work at NORAD or someplace where constant, clean power is assured.

Sara sammons said:

I was mid way through building an image in photoshop cs2 when the power went out, is there any hiddy hole that my mac may have hidden an auto save/ recovery type file in the way a microsoft PC would have or is it really lost for ever?

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, probably not. I know Photoshop saves active Smart Layers into the TemporaryItems folder (hidden pretty deep in your Library), but not whole documents.

Hence the designers' mantra: save and save often. I think all of us have lost a pretty big project to a crash or power failure; I've lost several. Just relax, relate, release © and start over with the build again. It's usually quicker the second time.

I have to agree with Wonderspark, have had an APC UPS for 3 years now and will never run a mission critical application without one again.
A lot of folks only learn to back up after their first HDD failure, many others only find out what a UPS is after their first power cut...
Time Machine backs up automatically but the intervals are long between each snapshot. You can change this with a command line instruction: http://osxdaily.com/2012/02/02/change-the-time-machine-backup-schedule/