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diegog19915553
diegog19915553
Participant
June 29, 2016
Question

Data sets Photoshop scripting

  • June 29, 2016
  • 1 reply
  • 1335 views

Hi everyone, wanted to know if it's possible to create a script which would read the data sets and also auto-link the layers with their respective data set, for example

if I had 3 layers called "name" and the data set has a "name" column, the layers and that value would be linked.

Kindest regards

Thanks!

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

JJMack
Community Expert
JJMackCommunity Expert
Community Expert
June 29, 2016

What kind of link?  Links layers to external files.  Place linked images objects are links. You make metadata links.  One problem is Layer name may not be unique is a document a document could have many layers the the same layer name like "My Image Layer" Im sure all layers would not require data sets.  Scripts can read and write files.   Photoshop Data driven graphics use CSV file the link Layers define variable with files or text replacement in  using rows and columns in the CSV file.  You may want to look into Photoshop data driver graphics. What your asking sound a bit like Data driven graphics template documents.  You may have never have notice menu items like  menu Image>Variables>Define

JJMack
diegog19915553
diegog19915553Author
Participant
June 29, 2016

Thanks for answering.

That's exactly what I want, but in a programmatically way, I mean, defining variables to link them with the layers, but using scripting.

Additional information:

I'm using data driver graphics with photoshop but the file sometimes becomes in a big file with many layers. in other words, I'm using a CSV document in order to feed the PSD document and then link each variable with each layer, in my case, text layers.

The hard work appears when I have to link many layers with the same variable, so I wonder if I could use scripting to link them in a programmatically way.

Please if you have any additional question let me know.

JJMack
Community Expert
JJMackCommunity Expert
Community Expert
June 29, 2016

I really do not know Javascript I just hack at Photoshop scripting.    Photoshop has limits soe are quite large lik you van jad 8,000 layers.  Some limits are small you can only have 53 alpha channels.  When thing becoms large you may run into some limit.

Photoshop scripts can read and write files and they can read and write metadata and metadata can also be written into saved PSD files files.  So if your a good programmer may be able to use metadata to keep information about the documents layers and structure and link things for your scripts can used.  You can have arrays of information for layers in metadata.   I normally only use metadata as a scratch pad area to hold information between runs of a script. in an action.  The second run of the script removes removes my metadata from the first run. So my metadata never make it to disk if there is no save between runs of the scripts in an action.

JJMack
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