Photoshop droplet on server?

[Silly-V]

Hello, I am looking to answer a hypothetical situation: what is the way to get droplets to work in a central network location, so that multiple users from different computers (Perhaps both Windows and Mac) can use some common folders to process files when needed. Let's assume that they only do it a few times during the week, so putting files at the same time into the same place is not a big issue. So, my question is: can Photoshop be installed on a server, and made to run droplet folders, without the need to make a big application using other software?

Then, if it is possible to put a droplet on a server location along with a copy of Photoshop, and it works by processing the files which are dropped in, what if one of the actions calls a script which has an input dialog, or if the Photoshop running on the server produces a modal dialog, who sees it?

The idea is to be able to have Windows or Mac users place files into a central folder, and get the output somewhere else, without having to use a copy of photoshop themselves, or at least without having to open up Photoshop and browsing for a script.

I have tried to look on the internet for some examples, and I found some leads, but they are more oriented towards the web & web-to-print side, so they didn't focus on discussing this part in detail as the topic was just a subset of a larger web-app oriented picture.

Also, I saw imagemagick being suggested as well. However, what I would like to find out is just what happens when a copy of PS processes a droplet on a server, if this is possible.

[JJMack]

I believe that would violate  your licence agreement with Adobe.

[Silly-V]

Ok  let's assume everyone has a copy of photoshop, but what we want to do is make a single droplet that has all the latest actions on it, so that all the users in an organization use the latest version.  So people don't get all messed up as to where this & that folder is on different computers- we'd like it in a single place for the sake of consistency, not necessarily to use free photoshop..

[JJMack]

You may have to distribute the droplets. The droplet run from a server would run on the user machine will want to start Photoshop on the users local machine. All the machine may not have the same Photoshop and plug-ins installed. So the users machine may need to be maintained by an IT staff so all machines will be compatible. Running Photoshop on the server even if all had licence may not work. Concurrent running instances of Photoshop may not be possible.  Photoshop design may prevent that or cause delays because of files being locked.   Photoshop was not designed to be a server application. Using it as a server application I quite sure would violate the licence agreement

[Silly-V]

The droplet run from a server would run on the user machine will want to start Photoshop on the users local machine.

Thank you, this part is as far as I'd want to go. The usage would be for a very streamlined work process, putting quality in synch at more steps in a workflow. Ideally I would like to not have to distribute the new droplet, except to one place, so not only desktop employees, but also laptop-wielding freelance employees can conform to company standards when using their photoshop to create our graphics files.

[xbytor2]

Ideally I would like to not have to distribute the new droplet, except to one place, so not only desktop employees, but also laptop-wielding freelance employees can conform to company standards when using their photoshop to create our graphics files.

You would need to put the droplet and/or script on a shared file server and each user would need to have a legal install of PS on their laptop/desktop/whatever. This is not an uncommon scenario. If people are going to be unconnected from the file server, you can tweak things so that the script copies the most current version from the server if available and uses what's local if that's not possible.

[Silly-V]

Thank you for this info, I do not expect that it would be even needed to have a local copy for my scenario: the purpose of the droplet actions and scripts would be to navigate & use assets which are also in a central location, such as templates and destination folders & such. This way, when they complete the human portion of the task, the automated output actions will be performed by just dragging files to the appropriate folder.

[matias.kiviniemi]

If I understood you correctly you I you could have a company plugin/panel and a bunch of jsx files on server. When panel is opened it would check if any of the jsx has updated (e.g. one service for returning a list of jsx-files and versions) and download changed ones.

That said, sounds like an uphill battle trying to force Photoshop into something it's not. One question is how often will those droplets change? If it's like ~monthly, then bundling everything as a zxp (you can include multiple things in one) and distributing those through corporate IT infra (in anycase you need some to maintain network shares & such) might be simpler.

[Silly-V]

Matias, if distributing actual script files to all users was, alas, the only goal, that would be the way to do it.  The special considerations for our goals are the features which make a droplet very handy in a quick work environment: drag & drop function, as well as not having to have PS in front, or running.

It may seem trivial, but it's one of those little nuggets that saves a lot of time when we use Finder a lot - everything is click-drag-repeat...

Anyways, everyone so far says that droplets will simply run on a user's local Photoshop- which is sufficient for the need at hand: all the users get the same actions when they drag on a particular folder.

[Chuck Uebele]

I sort of have something like that, but it's a time-lapse set up. I have a dedicated computer running PS 24/7. I wrote a script that checks a upload folder every few seconds, and if a new file is placed in that folder, it processes the image, and saves the RAW version and a formatted version to different folders. So in effect, it could also be used to have users place imaged in a process folder on the server then process them.

[Silly-V]

csuebele‌ : that looks like it's a nice setup, is that on Windows? That's far more advanced than having a common droplet perform actions for different users, but an interesting concept I would like to learn about further. Also, what are the implications as brought to our attention by JJMack‌ ?

[Chuck Uebele]

Yes, it's on a Win system. I have a couple of these setups doing time-lapse. The only issue is that it ties up one computer with PS, as it's on all the time.

[gauthierg11514642]

Is there a way to easily setup those things?

In our company, i just installed a mac mini that should run 24/7 as well, containing Photoshop. I've created some Photoshop .atn-files that we need to process and compress a large amount of pictures, preferably via the netwerk; Is it possible to somehow install this droplet on the dedicated mac mini, and then place shortcuts to this droplet on every computer desktop linked to our company network?

This would save us a huge amount of time, and we would gain some uniformity when processing the images we need.

So, my question is, is this possible, and if so, how do you can set this up? (settings of mac mini as well as PSD, and is it as easy as 'just creating shortcuts to droplets' and move them on the network?

The droplet on every desktop should work as an 'IN' folder, where one can put in the rough images, and after the processing and compressing, they should be put in an "OUT"-folder, which is in essence a shortcut to a network folder...

[Chuck Uebele]

I don't know if a shortcut to a droplet would work as you want. As JJMack said, it might want to open PS on the local computer rather than the one on the server. You would have to test it to see. The other option is as I stated above, to have PS running 24/7 where is checks a process folder on the server. If you're using a Mac, you might be able to set up a watch folder. I don't know Macs very well, so I don't know how to go about that.

[EnsilZah_]

This is a bit off on a tangent, and doesn't lead very far, but a while back I wrote a script that allows you to input a list of folders and an action that would run on each folder.
I was thinking at that point, if I wanted to distribute the batch jobs across several computers, how would I do it?
I checked out the com.adobe.photoshop API at that point, and it seemed to me that it would be possible to write a .NET server app that handed out jobs to Photoshop on one computer, and a client app with a UI that sent jobs to the server app,  I didn't get very far with that because I haven't had any experience with .NET but it seemed possible.

Another possible solution I can think of, is making some sort of small app that writes an XML file which includes locations of files, desired scripts and actions to run, to some watch folder, and have the remote Photoshop machine check the folder periodically and execute the instructions in the XML files.

[Silly-V]

Coming back to check out this thread, I have in the recent past conducted a test where I was able to execute a .jsx script using a web interface of a PHP web-app on my localhost (submit a web form, PHP script executes any desktop app) - something quite basic and yet advanced (setting up the permission settings in my PHP was a real drag for me being newb) as far as my experiments go. Well, it worked, implying that another computer could be used to control the applications on this computer, when on the same network - which is fascinating and potentially quite useful.

[anthonyc49523867]

Just came across this thread and wanted to know if you are still trying to work on this? It can be done. I have a Windows Server running photoshop that processes product images daily. Set up some droplets tied to actions, a few automated windows tasks and a script that handles a few other processes.

[JJMack]

Is Adobe OK with you running Photoshop as Server service.  Did you run your Serve Photoshop service by Adobe legal. I believe that providing server Photoshop service would violate Adobe's Creative Cloud  terms of use.  It a single user contract  or multi seat contract I seem to recall. I do not know what agreement you entered into with Adobe though.

[anthonyc49523867]

Its not CC its CS6, which we have an enterprise license for.

[Chuck Uebele]

Make sure you understand what the enterprise license is. In our case at Boeing, we had to buy a number of "seats." Once you exceed those seats, you have to purchase more. It's not, just one license.

[anthonyc49523867]

Thanks for the info I will double check with the appropriate people here.

[Stephen_A_Marsh]

Some potential non-Adobe options for server based image processing (I have not checked the terms/EULA though):

XnConvert · Photo Resizer, Graphic Converter

XnView Software · nConvert

Convert, Edit, Or Compose Bitmap Images @ ImageMagick

GraphicsMagick Image Processing System

[anthonyc49523867]

Thanks for the additional tools, I will check them out.

It turns out its just a windows desktop machine running the automated process not a windows server.

[DBarranca]

Vasily,

if I remember properly, in the HTML Panels book there are examples of Panels connecting to a remote server to load / execute JSX code: could that scenario fit as an answer to your question?

Davide

[Silly-V]

Hi, this one was from some time ago, and these days I do have a goal to make an extension that helps manage organization's scripts in the way you describe!