Script to combine photos as they enter a folder

[jackj16303436]

Hi there, first-time poster, so apologies if this is just not possible. I've spent a few hours already searching and trying out some different scripts and actions, but I can't work this out:

I need photoshop to:

1. Take photos as they appear in a source folder (it will need to wait for two photos to appear)

2. Place these photos next to each other (I already have a template for this with a script that works)

3. Save the result as a PNG in an output folder.

4. Delete the source photos (or remove/move them to a separate folder)

It seems really simple but it just doesn't seem possible. A particular challenge is that photos will be appearing one-by-one in the source folder, so photoshop will need to wait for a pair to have appeared before it completes and saves the image.

Note: I'm currently using 'PopulateCollageTemplate.jsx' from Free Photoshop Photo Collage and Mockup Toolkit  to create my side-by-side collage. I'm happy with the output but I can't keep this running all the time and autosave etc.

Is this impossible?

[Akash Sharma]

Moving to Photoshop Scripting​

[JJMack]

Do a search on for something like "watch folder" in the Photoshop Scripting forum. You may set some ideas.

https://forums.adobe.com/search.jspa?place=%2Fplaces%2F1383833&sort=updatedDesc&q=watch+folder

Additionally you would need to modify my scripts to save PNG Files instead of Jpeg files and comment out the save of the PSD file file. PNG file are intended for web use. If you want to print them Jpeg is a better option.  Normally Collage images do not contain transparency so why do you need to save PNG images?

Why do the composite need to be generated as soon as the second image appears in the folder.  Doe you have a deadline or some real time requirements..   It would  seem far easier to use   Batch the folder on some schedule and when the output images are all saved delete all the images in the source image folder. Use the BatchMultiImageCollage.jsx script.

[jackj16303436]

Thanks for the response JJMack!

A watch folder script is exactly what I'm looking for but none of those listed seem to be designed for two photos, or mention anything about removing/moving the files afterwards. Bit of a difficult one as I'm not really good enough to be combining scripts yet.

The requirement is basically to bridge the gap between two pieces of our software that don't quite do what we need them to do. PNG is what our software recognises because we don't like compressing images before they're finally outputted.

The process is as above due to the nature of the event that we're running - we're getting images transferred wirelessly to a folder, but we need to combine each pair as soon as there are two in the folder, then save so that our second piece of software can upload to our platform. This needs to be done over and over again for 3 days.

I know it's a bit niche!

[JJMack]

jackj16303436  wrote

I know it's a bit niche!

Therefore you need to develop your own solution.

[jackj16303436]

Well, that's precisely what I'm attempting to do here...

If anyone has any tips then do please throw them my way. Nothing's a bad idea!

[JJMack]

I think you are at the point where you know what you want to do and this community knows what you want. and there is no known current implementation of what you want to do. So you need implement your design,