Multiple contact sheets from multiple folders

[shamon78]

I have 43 folders that I'd like to make separate contact sheets from. In total there are about 500x pdfs in there.

Is there a way I can create a different contact sheet for each of these folders automatically in Bridge? Or does anyone have a script that can be helpful here?

I'm using Adobe Bridge CS6.

Thanks all

Steve

[I have gone]

I'm sorry to say that it may not be possible, but saying that IF you are using a Windows machine you could  write your own contact sheet routine. BUT once again Adobe has screwed that up, but it can be rectified by downloading the Photoshop Option Plug-ins for CS5 Adobe - Photoshop : For Windows : Photoshop CS5 Optional Plugins

You would need to install the "Picture Package (ContactSheetII)" plugin then delete the contactsheetII.jsx from the application/presets/scripts folder. once this is done you can script a contactsheet.

You also have Picture Package back!

As an example.

createContactSheet(Folder("~").openDlg("*.*",true));

//addTitle("Mr So and So");
function createContactSheet(selectedFiles) { 
      var cSheetOpts = new ContactSheetOptions;          
        cSheetOpts.acrossFirst    = true; 
        cSheetOpts.bestFit        = false; 
        cSheetOpts.caption       = true; 
        cSheetOpts.flatten      = false; 
        cSheetOpts.resolution    = 300; 
        cSheetOpts.rowCount       = 2;         
        cSheetOpts.columnCount    = 3;          
        cSheetOpts.font         = GalleryFontType.HELVETICA; 
        cSheetOpts.fontSize      = 12; 
        cSheetOpts.height         = 3508/(cSheetOpts.resolution/72); //A4
        cSheetOpts.width         = 2480/(cSheetOpts.resolution/72);
        cSheetOpts.useAutoSpacing = true; 
        cSheetOpts.vertical       = 15;          // 0..1000 
        cSheetOpts.horizontal     = 1;          // 0..1000 
        cSheetOpts.mode = NewDocumentMode.RGB;  
      app.makeContactSheet(selectedFiles,cSheetOpts); 
} 
function addTitle(Title){
var Black = new SolidColor();     
Black.rgb.hexValue = '000000';
var newTextLayer = activeDocument.artLayers.add(); 
newTextLayer.kind = LayerKind.TEXT; 
newTextLayer.textItem.kind = TextType.POINTTEXT 
newTextLayer.textItem.color = Black; 
newTextLayer.textItem.font = "ArialMT"; 
newTextLayer.textItem.fauxBold=true;
newTextLayer.textItem.size = 22; 
newTextLayer.textItem.contents = Title; 
newTextLayer.textItem.underline=UnderlineType.UNDERLINERIGHT;
newTextLayer.textItem.justification = Justification.CENTER; 
newTextLayer.textItem.position = [ new UnitValue ( activeDocument.width.as('px') /2, 'px' ),  new UnitValue (newTextLayer.textItem.size*2, 'px' )]; 
activeDocument.flatten(); 
}

[shamon78]

Thanks for letting me know this isn't possible Philip.

I don't have a windows machine at all so looks like I'll be doing this manually.

[Chuck Uebele]

Are the pdf's single pages? You can probably do this as Philip mentioned by writing your own script for a contact sheet and going through Photoshop.

[I have gone]

There is a problem writing your own script as Xbytors ContactsheetII is used in CS6 and if app.makeContactSheet() is used it calls his script and you can't create you own script, well this is what happens on a Windows machine, hence the need to remove ContactSheetII and install the CS5 plugin. I've heard this does not work on Macs though.

[Chuck Uebele]

No, I'm saying completely writing your own contact sheet script using Photoshop rather than Bridge. I've done that for our work. Our photos process their images: put metadata info in the image's borders, then they have an option to make a proof sheet with all their images with our company header and general description at the top. It's just a matter of getting all the files, which you can do in Bridge (through Bridge talk, or altering the startup file: photoshop.jsx) then opening them and arranging them on a proof sheet. I haven't tried this with pdfs, and I'm not sure how you would approach it if you have multiple paged pdfs.

[I have gone]

I suppose you could create JPGs from the PDFs (single or multi page) from the cache then use these for the contact sheet.

[Chuck Uebele]

I'm sure there are several ways to do this. Someone just needs to sit down and figure it out.