Actions, Scripts, or Visual Basic?

YK
Posted By
you know who maybe
Oct 26, 2005
Views
356
Replies
4
Status
Closed
I’ve got CS2 on Windows and would like advise on which way to go for automation. Either stick with inflexible actions, do scripts or VisualBasic. At least I think those are all my options. I think what I want is pretty straightforward.

For event shooting I often submit the same 100-300 photos to different clients who want different sizes and quality of JPEG and some need varying copyright text in the bottom corner and some do not want any. In CS1 I had actions for each client which is a pain. My actions do not work in CS2 and it’s kinda my off-season so now is the time for change.

I’d rather I had a way to open a script in notepad and change the resize values and text data to suit. In a perfect world I would record all steps as an action but then be able to edit the action by right-clicking on the resize step and changing the values, right-click the text step and change the values, etc

My typical flow is to shoot raw, download all cards to their own folders (so I only have a few hundred at the most in one folder), use Bridge to flag selects, use camera raw with multiple files to make adjustments, and then run the action.

Besides resizing and the text, the only other thing I would add is unsharp mask, and it would be nice to be able to vary that setting, too, depending on the resize values.

As I said, in a perfect world the actions would be easily editable, or would let me export it as a script I can edit. I tried opening one of my *.ATN files with notepad it wasn’t pretty!

Now I head/read there are some issues with scripts and camera raw with CS2, but I have no clue if my low level of automation complexity would be impacted by this "design flaw in Bridge" as someone called it.

As for my own experience,. I’ve been using Elements since version 1, CS for about six months, and just bought CS2. The Web Page Gallery wizard in Elements 2 has always been great for me to do all this except for the USM, but other limitations are I can’t set a size larger than 800 pixels, and it does not read RAW files. I’m done some batch file writing over the years but never did any programming, like C or VB.

Many thanks for reading!

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S
saswss
Oct 27, 2005
In article ,
"you know who maybe" writes:

My typical flow is to shoot raw, download all cards to their own folders (so I only have a few hundred at the most in one folder), use Bridge to flag selects, use camera raw with multiple files to make adjustments, and then run the action.

Besides resizing and the text, the only other thing I would add is unsharp mask, and it would be nice to be able to vary that setting, too, depending on the resize values.

As I said, in a perfect world the actions would be easily editable, or would let me export it as a script I can edit. I tried opening one of my *.ATN files with notepad it wasn’t pretty!

Now I head/read there are some issues with scripts and camera raw with CS2, but I have no clue if my low level of automation complexity would be impacted by this "design flaw in Bridge" as someone called it.

With CS the answer is easy: write a script using Javascript, VBscript, or Visual Basic. Scripts are much easier to edit than actions, and with Javascript or Visual Basic you can write a simple GUI to make it easier to change the settings that you often have to change.

But with CS2, I would urge you to go to the Adobe web site, find the forum for Photoshop scripting, and ask what is feasible to do from the Bridge.



Warren S. Sarle SAS Institute Inc. The opinions expressed here SAS Campus Drive are mine and not necessarily
(919) 677-8000 Cary, NC 27513, USA those of SAS Institute.
YK
you know who maybe
Oct 27, 2005
With CS the answer is easy: write a script using Javascript, VBscript, or Visual Basic. Scripts are much easier to edit than actions, and with Javascript or Visual Basic you can write a simple GUI to make it easier to change the settings that you often have to change.
But with CS2, I would urge you to go to the Adobe web site, find the forum for Photoshop scripting, and ask what is feasible to do from the Bridge.

Thank you, Warren!
YK
you know who maybe
Oct 28, 2005
"you know who maybe" wrote in message
With CS the answer is easy: write a script using Javascript, VBscript, or Visual Basic. Scripts are much easier to edit than actions, and with Javascript or Visual Basic you can write a simple GUI to make it easier to change the settings that you often have to change.
But with CS2, I would urge you to go to the Adobe web site, find the forum for Photoshop scripting, and ask what is feasible to do from the Bridge.

Wow, those forums are mess. I can only guess they are easier to use on a Mac. 🙂 Why everyone just doesn’t use USENET I don’t understand.
JM
Jerry McEwen
Oct 31, 2005
On Fri, 28 Oct 2005 13:50:22 -0700, "you know who maybe" wrote:

Wow, those forums are mess. I can only guess they are easier to use on a Mac. 🙂 Why everyone just doesn’t use USENET I don’t understand.

I hear you. I read those forums on both Mac and PC and due to what software is available, I prefer using Windows with Agent. The newsreader selection for Mac just isn’t there.

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