Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers - Martin Evening [317]
To start with, go to the Scripts menu in the Photoshop File menu (Figure 15.11). There you will see a few sample Scripts that are readily available to experiment with. Among these is a script called ‘Export Layers to Files’ (Figure 15.12). This can be used to generate separate file documents from a multi-layered image. Other scripts I like to use include the ‘Load Files into Stack…’, which I find useful when preparing images for stacks image processing or before choosing Edit Auto-Align layers.
Figure 15.11 The Photoshop Scripts menu.
Figure 15.12 An example of the Export Layers to Files script dialog.
Script Event Manager
The Script Event Manager can be configured to trigger a Javascript or an action in Photoshop whenever a particular operation is performed. Figure 15.13 shows a simple example of what can be done using the Script Event Manager.
Figure 15.13 The Script Event Manager is located in the File Scripts menu. The dialog shown here has been configured to trigger popping the File Info dialog whenever a document is saved.
Automated plug-ins
The Automation features described on this page are examples of Automated plug-ins. What distinguishes these from normal plug-ins is that they enable Photoshop to perform a complex set of procedures based on simple user input. Adobe has also made Automated plug-ins ‘open source’, which means it is possible for third-party developers to build their own Automated plug-ins for Photoshop. I believe that Pixel Genius (of which I am a co-founder) is so far the only company who has made use of this feature in Photoshop to produce the PhotoKit, PhotoKit Sharpener and PhotoKit Color Automated plug-ins.
Crop and Straighten Photos
This Automated plug-in is very straightforward to use, if you have scanned images that need to be rotated and cropped. You can gang up several images at once on your scanner, scan the pictures in as one image and choose ‘Crop and Straighten Photos’ from the Automate submenu (note: this option is not available in Bridge). Photoshop then creates a rotated and cropped copy version of each picture (Figure 15.14). It kind of works, but only if the background has a reasonably solid color. Crop and Straighten therefore works best if the border is a clear white or black. If Crop and Straighten fails to work on all images at once, it sometimes helps if you make a selection around the individual images first and process them one by one.
Figure 15.14 The Crop and Straighten Photos plug-in can be used to extract scanned photos that need to be rotated and cropped.
Fit Image
Fit Image… is a very simple Automated plug-in that allows you to bypass the Image Image Size menu item (Figure 15.15). It is well suited for the preparation of images for screen-based design work. You enter the pixel dimensions you want the image to fit to, by specifying the maximum pixel width or height. Note that if you enter the same pixel dimensions for the width and height, Fit Image can be used to simultaneously batch process landscape and portrait format images. Note here that scripts can be made to call other scripts and it is often useful to include Fit Image within a more complex script, or as part of a recorded action sequence.
Figure 15.15 The Fit Image dialog.
Symbols
16-bit 307
color space selection 309
32-bit 396 , 402 , 414
Exposure 15
64-bit processing 86
A
Absolute Colorimetric 671
Access CS Live panel 28 , 123
ACR compatible cameras 216
Acrobat format (PDF) 75
Actions 696 , 716–723
actions panel 53
actions sets 716–717
background layers 720
batch actions 53 , 722–723
customized file naming 723
destination options 723
error handling 723
file naming options 723
handling save commands 723
‘Override Action “Open” Commands’ 722
‘Override Action “Save as” Commands’ 723
selecting the source 722
suppress color profile warnings 723
suppress