Introduction to OLE Automation in Photoshop

Michael Fuchs wrote:

Can anybody provide me with a link to an introduction to OLE automation in Adobe Photoshop? Where can I get information about the object model, maybe some samples would be helpful.

I need to do some stuff that goes beyond the capabilities of plain action recording.

(Or is there another way of automatically generating images from a *.psd with different text imported from a list?)

Not OLE automation per se, but scripting, which I think you’ll like even better.
http://partners.adobe.com/asn/photoshop/scripting.jsp

sorry 4 crossposting … ;-(

Quite appropriate in this case. It avoids duplicate posts and replys. 🙂 —

Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com
www.geigy.2y.net

You can use the OLE browser that comes with either MS Visual Studio or Perl. If you don’t have Visual Studio, download Perl (which is free) and it will install the OLE browser (works only via MSIE).

"Michael Fuchs" wrote in message

Can anybody provide me with a link to an introduction to OLE automation in Adobe Photoshop? Where can I get information about the object model, maybe some samples would be helpful.

I need to do some stuff that goes beyond the capabilities of plain action recording.

(Or is there another way of automatically generating images from a *.psd with different text imported from a list?)

sorry 4 crossposting … ;-(

thanks a lot,
fuze

Sorry, the "Perl" is ActivePerl. www.activestate.com

"Branko Vukelic" wrote in message

You can use the OLE browser that comes with either MS Visual Studio or

Perl.

If you don’t have Visual Studio, download Perl (which is free) and it will install the OLE browser (works only via MSIE).

"Michael Fuchs" wrote in message

Can anybody provide me with a link to an introduction to OLE automation in Adobe Photoshop? Where can I get information about the object model, maybe some samples would be helpful.

I need to do some stuff that goes beyond the capabilities of plain action recording.

(Or is there another way of automatically generating images from a *.psd with different text imported from a list?)

sorry 4 crossposting … ;-(

thanks a lot,
fuze

Thank you Mike and Branko, your replies definitely put me on the right track.

At the moment I only use Photoshop 7.0, does anybody have a small working example for that? (The docs from the Adobe website only deal with the CS version. I think there are major differences in the object model between those versions)

I do not know how to get that whole thing started. I tried Visual Studio and looked at the OLE/COM Object Viewer (is that what you meant Branko?). What is the differnce of the scripting approach anyway, is that something else than using the COM objects? (my impression is that this is the same.)

btw, i know how to programm VB, but this is my first step into the OLE/COM/Active X world.

thanks a lot!

michael

I only got this far: (Opens Photoshop, loads a file into PS and closes PS)

Public Class Form1
Inherits System.Windows.Forms.Form

#Region " Windows Form Designer generated code "

<snip>

#End Region

Dim aaa As New PhotoshopTypeLibrary.PhotoshopApplication()

Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
aaa.Open("C:\Dokumente und
Einstellungen\fuze\Desktop\template.psd")
End Sub

Private Sub Button2_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button2.Click
aaa.Quit()
End Sub
End Class

I’ve been playing around with VBScript and your code snippet seems rather odd to me. What version of VB are you using? VB6 works pretty much the same way as VBScript, and there was no need for such bulky code when I was scripting InDesing. Then again, if it works, that’s just fine with me.

You wrote:

Dim aaa As New _
PhotoshopTypeLibrary.PhotoshopApplication()

With InDesign, I’d usually go like

==============code================
Dim myInDesign As InDesign.Application
‘ VBScript makes no use of "As" keyword, tho.

Set myInDesign = CreateObject("InDesign.Application.2.0") ‘Open InDesign

Set myActiveDocument = myInDesign.ActiveDocument
‘Gets the active document, and so on…
==============end=================

I don’t have the VisualStudio right here, so I can’t tell you where exactly was "Object Browser" (or whatever the name was) located… It’s something to do with References, I think.

You should probably check the Visual Basic news group. It’s slow, but you’ll be able to get your answers.

Thanks for your reply!

The code I posted is not really well structured in terms of OO programming, I know. (And there is a lot of overhead in it as this displays a form with two buttons and stuff.) I am using Visual Studio ..NET (and VB.NET). The object browser [1] in VS.NET gives you information on which methods, properties, constants etc. are declared in those millions of class libraries you find in the .NET environment and other refereced libraries like the PhotoshopTypeLibary.

The code I tried works for Photoshop 7.0, and the objects for Photoshop CS are pretty well documented on the Adobe website. But 7.0 seems to be different, and I can’t find any reference guide.

My problem now is, that I have no idea on how to address the layers in the file I opened. (I would like to get a text layer and change the text in there to automate the process of making lots of gifs or jpgs from a psd template which look the same but have different text on them.)

I am now trying microsoft.public.vb.com, maybe someone over there can help. I am just wondering that this does not seem to be a standard problem on the web.

When you’re scrpting in InDesign, where do you "run" your scripts? (I figured that PS CS provides the possibility to execute scripts via the File>Scripts menu which I cannot find in 7.0.)

Thanks,
Michael

PS: Maybe I am just thinking too complicated. Is there another approach to my problem???

[1]
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/productinfo/overview/acade mic/overview/default.aspx

Object Browser Window

Similar to the Class View window, the Object Browser dialog box shows you a list of classes and their respective properties and methods. The main difference between these two tools is the Object Browser allows you to browse all referenced components, not just the components for the current project like the Class View window does. A nice feature of the Object Browser is that it also shows you the full declaration for the method or property. To bring up the Object Browser, on the View menu, click Other Windows and then Object Browser.

Tip If you wish to see components that are not referenced by your projects, you can add them using the "customize" button on the toolbar. They will not be added as references, only shown in the Object Browser for your convenience

As for scripting, VBScript, JScript, Perl and some other scripts require only a scripting host running on your machine in order to be executable. That means that if you have a proper host, you can treat those scripts as executable files. VBScript and JScript are treated as Windows native, so there’s no need to install anything separately.

What I do is I fire up notepad, write the script and then save it as Unicode text file with .vbs or .js extension, thus making it executable. If you copy this script into the "Scripts" folder of any Adobe product, it can be exec’ed from the script pallette or whatnot.

I find that scripts (as opposed to full apps that you make with VB6 or VB.NET) are much faster and allow many functions that are WSHost-based (supported natively by the scripting host) and not available implicitly in the VStudio package. (Like RegExps.)

InDesign, Illustrator, InCopy, and Acrobat are fully scriptable. You can address all aspects of the apps from the scripts. But Photoshop seems to allow access only to the actions "engine", which is, IMO, enough to allow you much flexibility.

What can you do?

You can put the reference to the Photoshop app:

Dim aaa As New PhotoshopTypeLibrary.PhotoshopApplication()

i.e., "aaa" variable into Watch list. Place a break point just after the line I cited above. This will halt the execution when the parser reaches the line after this one, and you’ll be able to view the contents of the "aaa" variable through the Watch window. I don’t know about Photoshop, but when I was writing simple apps for InDesign, I used to be able to see the entire object model "live" (that is, with all the variables set and documents loaded, etc) through the Watch list.

Hey, this is getting quite OT, don’t you think? E-mail me at I’ll install the VStudio 98 in meantime and see
what’s in it.

"Michael Fuchs" wrote in message

Thanks for your reply!

The code I posted is not really well structured in terms of OO programming, I know. (And there is a lot of overhead in it as this displays a form with two buttons and stuff.) I am using Visual Studio .NET (and VB.NET). The object browser [1] in VS.NET gives you information on which methods, properties, constants etc. are declared in those millions of class libraries you find in the .NET environment and other refereced libraries like the PhotoshopTypeLibary.

The code I tried works for Photoshop 7.0, and the objects for Photoshop CS are pretty well documented on the Adobe website. But 7.0 seems to be different, and I can’t find any reference guide.

My problem now is, that I have no idea on how to address the layers in the file I opened. (I would like to get a text layer and change the text in there to automate the process of making lots of gifs or jpgs from a psd template which look the same but have different text on them.)
I am now trying microsoft.public.vb.com, maybe someone over there can help. I am just wondering that this does not seem to be a standard problem on the web.

When you’re scrpting in InDesign, where do you "run" your scripts? (I figured that PS CS provides the possibility to execute scripts via the File>Scripts menu which I cannot find in 7.0.)

Thanks,
Michael

PS: Maybe I am just thinking too complicated. Is there another approach to my problem???

[1]

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/productinfo/overview/acade mic/overview/def ault.aspx

Object Browser Window

Similar to the Class View window, the Object Browser dialog box shows you a list of classes and their respective properties and methods. The main difference between these two tools is the Object Browser allows you to browse all referenced components, not just the components for the current project like the Class View window does. A nice feature of the Object Browser is that it also shows you the full declaration for the method or property. To bring up the Object Browser, on the View menu, click Other Windows and then Object Browser.

Tip If you wish to see components that are not referenced by your projects, you can add them using the "customize" button on the toolbar. They will not be added as references, only shown in the Object Browser for your convenience

Hi, When writing Photoshop scripts in VB.Net, how and where do you find the Photoshop CS object library.

I would greatly appreciate someone telling me what is the best way to read a pixel’s color,

What I want to do is open a file in PS, read a individuals pixel’s color then reset it to another predefined color.

Not that I have looked at the problem in great yet but on initial looking at the PS object library I wasnt sure which object to use.

Does anybody have any good web links

( I have read the Photoshop web site regarding scripts for VB.Net)

DW

Animal wrote:

Hi, When writing Photoshop scripts in VB.Net, how and where do you find the Photoshop CS object library.

You said you read the Adobe webpage on scripting – there you find the Photoshop CS Visual Basic Reference Guide, a list of all objects and their properties and methods.

Or are you talking about actual programming: Reference the Photoshop library (in Visual Studio .NET: Right click on References -> Add Reference -> Change to the COM tab -> Select Adobe Photoshop 7.0/CS Object Library -> OK; then you can go through the objects in the Object Browser;)
After having done that, you can use the objects; If you use early binding you even have the IntelliSense functionality in Visual Studio .NET.

<snip>
Dim appRef As New Photoshop.Application()
Dim docRef As Photoshop.Document
docRef = appRef.Documents.Add(4, 4)
</snip>

I would greatly appreciate someone telling me what is the best way to read a pixel’s color,

I do have the same problem, I could not find anything.

DW

-michael

Michael Fuchs wrote:

I would greatly appreciate someone telling me what is the best way to read a pixel’s color,

I do have the same problem, I could not find anything.

DW

-michael

you can’t do it directly. you need to ‘export’ a layer and then work on the bitmap in a separate memory array, then send it back to PS.

it’s too damn early right now for the full explanation.
–JC