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BenjiLime
Participant
July 19, 2018
Answered

Image Processor Automating PNGs As Layers

  • July 19, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 1345 views

Hi,

I'm very new to Photoshop so I'm sorry if this is an obvious question. I've searched everywhere for answers but haven't found anything yet.

When I open a PNG in Photoshop, it makes it a layer to preserve its transparency, which is great. I have then recorded an action, which works great when I manually open a PNG and then run the action.

However, when I use the Image Processor to run the action on all the PNG images in a given folder, it seems to open each image as a background. This loses the transparency.

I can't see a setting anywhere to tell the Image Processor to open the images as layers instead of the background. Is there a workaround for this? The only thing I can think of is to record the action to change the background to a layer, select the background color, and mask it. This should work as long as I don't have the background color in the image itself but it seems like a very inefficient way of doing it.

I'd be very grateful if anyone could point me in the right direction.

Many thanks.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Bojan Živković11378569

I can not reproduce this problem. To test do the following:

  • Record simple action with single step to change image or canvas size and turn modal control on. Since action must open dialog you can see what is open: layer or you have somehow Background layer.
  • Process a couple of images and you will know is there some problem with script or your action.

Update: it does what you are describing when you are batch processing to save as JPEG files what I have skipped because you have files with transparent background. Save as PSD then batch convert to JPEG if that's final destination. And by the way, have you tried to use File > Automate > Batch. The only difference is that you must record Save step in your action.

2 replies

JJMack
Community Expert
JJMackCommunity Expert
Community Expert
July 19, 2018

The image processor will open all Image files in a folder. You can not filter the file type to process.  You may want to find Paul's Picture Processor script and try using it.  It is like Image processor but has additional options like filtering the file type to process.

GitHub - Paul-Riggott/PS-Scripts: Photoshop Scripts

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Paul-Riggott/PS-Scripts/master/Picture%20Processor.jsx

JJMack
Bojan Živković11378569
Community Expert
Bojan Živković11378569Community ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
July 19, 2018

I can not reproduce this problem. To test do the following:

  • Record simple action with single step to change image or canvas size and turn modal control on. Since action must open dialog you can see what is open: layer or you have somehow Background layer.
  • Process a couple of images and you will know is there some problem with script or your action.

Update: it does what you are describing when you are batch processing to save as JPEG files what I have skipped because you have files with transparent background. Save as PSD then batch convert to JPEG if that's final destination. And by the way, have you tried to use File > Automate > Batch. The only difference is that you must record Save step in your action.

B
BenjiLimeAuthor
Participant
July 19, 2018

Brilliant, fantastic, that's done the trick! Thank you so much!

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