Script compatibility upgrading from CS4 to Creative Cloud

[default84j32rnrj2xl]

My company has been using CS4 since its release but is considering switching to CC. We have a large .jsx script used to modify product photos (resizing, applying watermarks, saving, etc.). To what degree will this script be compatible in CC? Totally compatible? Totally incompatible, needing an entire rewrite? Just a few modifications?

Thanks!

[erinferinferinf]

That's a great question, and the answer might surprise you...

• Which particular Creative Cloud products does your script run on? (Just Photoshop? Lightroom and Photoshop?)
• Which operating system does your company usually use? Windows? MacOS?
• How do you run the script? Do you run it in ExtendScript ToolKit? Is it a panel with a button? Or do you run it using something else...?

If the answers above are Photoshop/Windows/ExtendScript ToolKit, your script will probably run in very similar way, if not largely the same...

These days, hardware and operating systems are really influencing the answer. ExtendScript ToolKit (ESTK) is a 32-bit application, and 32-bit apps haven't been supported by macOS for two major versions. The newer M1 Macs and upcoming Windows ARM devices definitely won't run ESTK...

[default84j32rnrj2xl]

Thanks so much for the reply!

Yes, they are using Photoshop on Windows 10. There was once a panel button, but these days I think they're just drag & drop'ing the file into PS.

Thanks again for the help!

[erinferinferinf]

I wanted to follow-up and say be sure to test on one machine first - but other people got to that first!

One challenge we have internally at Adobe is that running scripts like your company does isn't tracked, so it's hard to tell how many people truly depend on scripting. Therefore, it can be tough to get resources to support scripters. It'd be helpful for me to know a ballpark size of the company...for example 50 people or fewer? 50-1,000? 1,00-5,000, or over 5,000?

[Chuck Uebele]

Erin, that's a loaded question, as when I was working at Boeing, in my local photo group, maybe a dozen people actually used the script, but it affected a large portion of the company, in being able to get the high volume of photos that we shot out to our customers in a timely maner.

[c.pfaffenbichler]

How would one compare the Script-users and the non-Script-users exactly anyway? 

That some people prefer not to increase the efficiency of certain tasks in Photoshop (which may be a perfectly reasonable choice depending on the kind and volume of work) should ideally not be an argument to make things harder for the others. 

[JJMack]

In CC 2015 Adobe rewrote Photoshop ScriptUI. If your CS4 scripts have ScriptUI dialogs some may need to be updated to work  with  Photoshop version  CC 2015 and newer. I find most scripts written in the CS2 time frame work fine in PS 22.5.1

[Stephen_A_Marsh]

I'd suggest that you install a free trial to the cheapest/limited subscription for Photoshop and test yourself as this is a very open-ended question. Ensure that you fully understand the trial and subscription cancellation opt-out terms or fees etc. Otherwise you could share your script/s for others to test and comment on.

[Chuck Uebele]

Like the others said, for the most part the scripts should work fine, but once in a while some feature has changed and the scripts will break. I have had that happen to a few of the scripts that I have written. Most the time it's not too big of a deal to either find a work around or generate new code that works with the new feature.