Have only very recently acquired photoshop v7
Interesting, since it is now three versions old, and not for sale.
As far as your question, it sounds like you want to border (frame) each layer of a two layer image. In your case since you’re starting with two images, why not run the action on each, and then drag them both onto a larger canvas?
YrbkMgr
Thank you for your quick response.
I understand what you are suggesting but I am working with mattes; in this case, I would then have the difficulty of trying to butt seamlessly two mattes together – not insurmountable I agree, but is there an easy fix?
Fazer…
Interesting question.
re:
in this case, I would then have the difficulty of trying to butt seamlessly two mattes together – not insurmountable I agree, but is there an easy fix?
YrbkMgr’s suggesion was the easy fix. 🙂
Keep in mind an action is a recorded sequence of commands to achieve a specific outcome. Since the action in question applies a matte and a frame, I’ll bet it has quite a few commands, thus modifying it action to accomodate side-by-side photos would require major reconstructive surgery.
To elaborate on YrbkMgr’s suggesion, here’s one approach: * assuming you have applied the action to two images, flatten both * create a new image wide enough for the final result
* Left image: select all, edit > copy, paste into new document * Repeat for right image, so you’ve got layer 2, layer 1 and Background. * Use rectangular marquee to make a selection, edit > cut to lop off the right edge in Layer 1. Doesn’t have to be a perfect…
* lop off the left edge in Layer 2. Doesn’t have to be a perfect… * Layer 2: add a layer mask
* with Layer 2 active, click the move tool
* drag with mouse to get the top piece pretty close.
* fine tune with arrow keys. Be sure to overlap the bottom layer with the top layer a bit. * set foreground color to black (press X and/or D keys)
* Literally click on the layer mask icon in the layers palette * airbrush along the overlapping edge to blend the top/bottom layers
Should look pretty good.
~Danny~
OK… It’s another day and I wrote an action that will do this. 🙂
E-mail me if you’d like to try it out. Click my name above this post to get my e-mail address.
I can’t see where butting two images together requires more than having your snap turned on. But that’s me <shrug>
re:
can’t see where butting two images together requires more than having your snap turned on.
That would be true for unframed images.
Visualize this…Suppose you’ve got an action that builds a digital matte and simulated wooden frame around (say) an 8"x10" image of Phos. You apply the same action to an 8"x10" of Chris. Further suppose you ultimately want the two matted images side by side with a single frame around both.
The action automates combining the two individual matted/framed images into one and eliminates (masks) the superflous frame edges. It’s not brain surgery, but its faster than doing it manually if one has several framed image pairs to be combined in this fashion.
Thanks for the reply Danny – I knew what you meant, but as it relates to
its faster than doing it manually if one has several framed image pairs to be combined in this fashion.
Using actions assumes a lot – one of the things you have to control for is image size and canvas size; whether you use absolute or relative references, etc. Now, if you have a pile of them to do, and they’re all the same, I suppose an action would save some time, but I can’t see how it would save all that much. If you try to run it in batch, you will have "next image/previous image" issues as well as canvas size and potential cropping of the canvas issues.
Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s neat that you did the action, but it seems to me that there are a lot of variables that have to be controlled for and tested. Frankly, by the time you did all of that, it simply seems faster and less error prone to New Image followed by dragging the two framed images onto the canvas. That doesn’t mean that you can’t actionize the steps, like placing a guide in the new canvas or framing the daughter pics. <shrug>.
It’s academic really, but that’s how I think of it.
