Julieanne Kost's Blog

If you need to create a flattened copy of your layers to use in an action (while leaving the underlying layers intact), while recording the action:

1) Create a new, blank layer at the top of the layer stack.

2) Use the shortcut Command + Option (Mac) / Control + Alt (Win) + Shift + E to “flatten” a copy of the layers onto the empty layer (that you just created at the top of the layer stack).

3) Although you will see “Merge Visible” as the recorded step in the action, you will also see the disclosure triangle to the left of the Merge Visible command. Click the triangle to reveal that using the shortcut to “Merge Visible” is different from using the menu item to  “Merge Visible” as the shortcut merges the visible layers on the new layer that you created in step 1 (as opposed to merging the visible layers into a single flattened layer).

For those who just want to know the short story – in Photoshop CS5 you can record an action that specifies every selection available in the Print Window and the Driver (paper size, paper type, color management mode, printer marks).

For those who want the longer version – in order to do this, we had to change the workflow a bit:

On Mac, in previous versions, you would set up your print in the Photoshop print window, click print, and then go to the OS print window to set the driver settings. We moved the OS print dialog into the Photoshop Print window, under the Printer Settings button. (The reason for this is so that we can capture all the info and put it in an action or a script.) On the first time printing in CS5, if you do not enter the Printer Settings dialog (the OS/Driver dialog), the OS dialog will appear after hitting print (just like CS4). It does this because there are no pre-existing settings. After that, this OS dialog will not appear automatically, and Photoshop will use whatever settings were last entered. Opening the Printer Settings in the print window will allow you to adjust those settings, just as before, but the order is different so this might be confusing.

On Windows, Photoshop has always had the OS/Driver dialog available from the Photoshop print window so it’s not as different, but we have removed the OS window you would have had after clicking print. Again, this was done so that Photoshop has all the print info (contained in Photoshop) so that you can record actions and scripts.

Another change that was made, is that upon selecting a printer, the default profile for the printer is selected and all of the profiles associated with that printer are filtered to the top of the list. Seems like a slam dunk, but unfortunately not all printers have logical defaults and unless you happen to be printing to the default paper, Photoshop will most likely be picking the wrong default profile. If you are a user of custom profiles, those profiles will very likely not be associated with the printer, so unfortunately Photoshop can not choose the correct profile automatically in that situation either.  It does however, at least encourage the selection of a printer profile (not AdobeRGB) to new users.

Thank you Tom Attix for this information!

To Export files from Lightroom and automatically launch Photoshop in order to run Droplets (batch actions), place the droplet in the Export Actions folder:

• Mac (user)/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom/Export Actions

• Win (user)/Application Data/Adobe/Lightroom/Export Actions

Then, in the Export dialog box under the Post Processing section, choose Post Processing > After Export > (name of droplet). For more information on using Photoshop Actions with Lightroom click here…

In this Episode of The Complete Picture (Helpful Hints for Creating Actions in Photoshop) I will focus on little known features and helpful hints for creating actions to successfully automate tasks in Photoshop.

To quickly set guides in the center of any size and/or resolution Photoshop document, set the Preferences for  Units & Rulers to Percentage, show your Rulers (Command (Mac) / Control (Win) + R), and record an action dragging guides to the 50%  marks. (You can also select View > New Guide to place the guide at the 50% mark instead of dragging it out from the rulers.) Next time you need guides, simply play the action. For more information about creating actions, please see:

Basic Actions and Batch Processing

In this episode of The Complete Picture, learn how you can accomplish more in less time using actions and batch processing in PSCS3’s to streamline your workflow and minimize repetitive tasks.

Advanced Actions, Droplets and Scripts

In this episode of The Complete Picture, take automation to a new level in PSCS3 by mastering complex actions in order to turn several steps into a single click. Discover droplets, integration with LR and scripts.

Based a a customer request, Thomas modified the original scrips so that it now will open an image and convert the Background into a layer and name the layer the file name – without the extension.

Installing the OpenAsLayerNoExtension.jsx script will allow you to open a file and have Photoshop CS5 automatically promote the background into a layer AND rename that layer the same as the file name (without the extension). This script works for the Open command, opening  files through Bridge and Adobe Camera Raw. Special thanks to Thomas Ruark at Adobe for creating and sharing this script!

Directions to install:

Copy the script into the Photoshop CS5 folder / Presets / Scripts / Event Scripts Only
Launch Photoshop CS5

Select File > Scripts > Script Events Manager

In the Script Events Manager dialog box:
Click to enable “Enable Events to Run Scripts/Actions:”
For Photoshop Event: use the drop down to select “Open Document”
In the Script drop down select “OpenAsLayer”
Click the Add button (it should show up in the upper list box)
Click the Done button

Open your document. In the Layers palette, the Background has been changed to a layer and renamed the document name. Note: This script will have no effect on documents that do not have a background layer.

Option (Mac) / Alt (Win) + left/right bracket will select the next layer up/down in the Layers panel. Adding the Shift key adds to the selection.

There are two columns to the left of recorded actions/commands in the Actions panel. The first column controls if the command in the action is to be played or skipped – when on, a check is displayed, when off, it’s an empty well. The second column determines if a “modal” dialog box will be displayed when the command is played – when on, a small dialog box icon is displayed, when off, it’s an empty well. Note: commands that do not display a dialog box are blank in the second column.

Option (Mac) / Alt (Win) -clicking on either of these two column’s icons (the check, the modal dialog box or the empty well) will toggle on or off all of the other commands/modal controls. Note that this shortcut works on other panels as well. For example, Option (Mac)/ Alt (Win) -clicking the eye icon in the Layers panel toggles the visibility of all other layers.

To change the settings recorded in an action,  double click on the command in the action and modify as needed.

In order to export all of your Layer Comps as independent files, select File > Scripts > layer Comps to Files. You can also export your layer Comps directly to Web Photo Gallery (WPG). And of course you can add a custom keyboard shortcut for either of these scripts by choosing Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts and select Shortcuts For: Application Menus.

If you choose to view your swatches (or styles) as a list, you can double click on the name of the swatch to rename it (this is true for any panel that displays it’s items as lists (Actions, Layer Comps etc.).

To improve batch processing performance, in the History panel,select History Options from the fly-out menu and deselect Automatically Create First Snapshot. Depending on the length of your action, you might also want to reduce the number History States in the Preferences > Performance panel. Just don’t forget to increase the number of states when you finished batch processing!

The Batch command can be recorded as part of an action to perform multiple batches in sequence. In addition, you can batch process multiple folders without reorganizing them on the hard drive – simply create aliases within a folder to the other folders you want to process, and select the Include All Subfolders option in the Batch command dialog box (or use a droplet).

You can save the steps in an Actions as a text file by pressing Control +Alt (Windows) or Command + Option (Mac) while selecting Save Actions from the Actions panel fly out menu. This is handy for reviewing or printing the contents of an Action (however, you can’t reload the text file back into Photoshop). Note that ALL of the Actions in ALL sets are printed out, so you may want to limit the number of actions you have loaded to eliminate a lot of deleting of unnecessary information.

In order to save an action, you must select the Set that the action is in (using the Actions panel). If there are multiple actions in the set, they will ALL be saved (this is a feature). If you only want to save a single action, drag it into it’s own lonely little set. If you have received an action from someone or want to load a saved action from one computer to another, navigate to the action using Bridge, and double click on it to load.