Have you tried IrfanView?
I do remember reading somewhere that somebody has developed a standalone brush viewer…wonder if they have anything similar for patterns?
Well, I recommend IrfanView at the drop of a hat – it’s powerful, FREE, and a lot of folks here use it. I’ve been using ACDSee for years, and when I went to XP, I thought I’d try IrfanView – ACDSee is SO much nicer, that I had to uninstall IrfanView and install ACDSee. So that’s a long winded way to say "no, I haven’t tried it for patterns, cuz I uninstalled it."
I thought that Bridge would be the perfect tool. But searching for patterns sux (so collections aren’t useful), and it won’t view PAT files, also sux.
Is this a candidate for a feature request?
I’m going to have to make some kind of damn contact sheet for my patterns, but it won’t be dynamic, so that’s a crappy solution.
Grrr. Sometimes CS2/Bridge is so flippin’ elegant, and other times, it’s neanderthal-like.
Whaddaya mean, exactly, about wanting it to be dynamic?
Do you mean you wish for it to operate say, like a web gallery slideshow, with forward and back buttons, but operating from your desktop?
It could be done with ImageReady and QT. A standalone Shockwave thingy comes to mind as well.
Need help, lemme know. (I’m still cogitating about the spinout.)
Whaddaya mean, exactly, about wanting it to be dynamic?
When I add new patterns, I just want to browse the patterns and have all the new ones there. A "contact sheet" metaphor is static – you have to produce the images and then caption them. I don’t want to have to go adding thumbs and crap – I just want to browse them.
I’m still cogitating about the spinout.
Me too. I’m working on a flash movie and that piece is going to be used on it. I keep playing, putting it away, playing, rinse and repeat. Sigh.
I wish that Bridge was able to look at the assets of Photoshop, including brushes, shapes, patterns…
Ah ha!
I didn’t know you had, or were competant in Flash, or that something other than a static image would work for what you want to do.
That being the case, I’ve had an interesting idea or two if you wanna go that route.
I get back to you via email, sometime over the weekend.
I didn’t know you had, or were competant in Flash,
<chuckle> Well, I have Flash 5, and I’m not competent, but I’ve done a few pretty interesting things.
I’ve had an interesting idea or two if you wanna go that route.
All ears.
Pierre
I wish that Bridge was able to look at the assets of Photoshop, including brushes, shapes, patterns…
Absolutely. I agree. Also, though, the search/find feature in Bridge absolutely rots – you can’t search for extensions, so you can’t search for "PAT" files. At least I couldn’t figure it out.
See, I was thinking that it would be great to search the HD’s for PAT, for example and create a collection. Then, it’s saved, and dynamic (I think). Even if it’s not dynamic, finding all the Asset files at present, is a challenge with Bridge. I download patterns, or create them and back them up, or put some here or some there for various reasons. IOW, they’re not all in the Presets folder of the current version of PS. So FINDING them just to view them in Bridge would be helpful.
Probably a feature request item.
Are you saying you don’t save all your patterns to the Photoshop/Presets/Patterns… folder?
If not, why not?
Me, I’m pretty organizationally tight-assed about that sort of thing, because it makes things easier for me down the road.
Makes ’em easier to find, even if you can’t get to them from the Bridge.
Me, I’m pretty organizationally tight-assed
Me too, only differently <smile>
Are you saying you don’t save all your patterns to the Photoshop/Presets/Patterns… folder?
Definately not. Some patterns I download, they go in the download folder. Some patterns are part of particular projects that must be ported to another system – it’s easier to keep project files together. There are a host of reasons, really. Mostly though, that after four or five years, never having removed a version of photoshop, they’re located in different spots. Sure, I could go through them all and put them in a single folder, but it still probably wouldn’t be in presets – these are my custom files and while there may be value in having them in a single folder, there’s no value to it being Presets. <shrug>
One value of being able to browse them would be… better organization. I would be able to tell very quickly what was dupe and what was not. I could do the old baseball card routine: "Got it, Got it, Need it, Got it".
A part of the reason that Bridge can’t read PS assets at present is likely because a PAT file, for example, can contain multiple patterns – a set, if you will. They’d have to do something like they did with Acrobat files, allowing you to browse within sets as well as the individuals.
The beautiful thing is, if Bridge worked well enough, you could create collections, and it wouldn’t matter where they were. You mine the HD’s, and save the collection, and name the collection. You could have one for each of the PS assets (brushes, shapes, patterns, etc.).
That way, you could have a lean loading photoshop, and still have quick access to them.
