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boinzy
Participant
January 21, 2014
Question

Scripting and automation advice - Batch processing and final naming

  • January 21, 2014
  • 2 replies
  • 1186 views

Right now I am using actions to automate the creation of some 3d mockups. The actions work well, but there seem to be some limitations I can't get around and I assume the scripting is what I need to implement next.

Here is my basic flow:

Artwork created > saved to Dropbox folder

Another Mac watches that folder > Automator script runs > opens image with PS droplet >

Runs one action to open and process two different 3d mockups

Saves final mockup images to new folder in Dropbox

This actually works quite well, but for a couple things:

  1. I can only drop one image file at a time. More than that and first runs, rest get ignored.
  2. When saving the final mockup images, the name of the file is always the name of the mockup PSD and overwrites each time.

I would like to be able to drop as many source image files into that Dropbox folder and have automation go through each and every file. I would also like each final 3d mockup image to be saved with the original filename of the source file image.

Do I need scripting for this?

If it matters I am using Photoshop CS5 on Mac OSX 10.9.1. I don't have any javascript experience to speak of, but can generally figure things out with a little hand holding. I can also share my PS Action if that helps.

Thank you!

Message was edited by: boinzy - Small edit to flow description, step two

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

B
boinzyAuthor
Participant
January 22, 2014

I'm not sure I can accomplish this for the entire flow. Perhaps someone could point me in the right direction on adding to the beginning and end of the workflow? Particularly saving each mockup with a unique filename?

Chuck Uebele
Community Expert
Chuck UebeleCommunity Expert
Community Expert
January 21, 2014

Scripting would solve these issues.  I'm on Win.  I don't think Win has a watch feature like the Mac, but I could be wrong.  I have a time-lapse camera set up in which I use a script to check to see if there is a new image.  What I do is set up one folder just for the camera uploads.  Then my script is set up to loop and check that folder at a certain interval by using the sleep function.  It then processes the image and saves it to a couple different folders.  Doing it this way, however, locks up that computer for just processing those images.  With the script, you can have it keep track of a naming sequence.

Edit:  By usinig the hold folder, if there are any files in it, the script will process them.  I copy the original files to a done folder so that the ones in the hold folder can be deleted.  The processed images go into another folder.

B
boinzyAuthor
Participant
January 21, 2014

Thank you csuebele. Do you think I should redo all my steps in a script or should I try to figure out how to write a script to supplement the PS Action?

I tried using PS Automate Batch and the standard PS Image Processing script, but both of those introduced dialog boxes that needed to be answered mid-process.

Chuck Uebele
Community Expert
Chuck UebeleCommunity Expert
Community Expert
January 21, 2014

I tend to like to have everything in a script, just so you don't lose links to actions, but you can do it either way.  Using the scriptListener code is pretty easy, and much like creating an action, only that you have to copy the code from the log file and paste it into you script.

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