Switching from Corel to Photoshop CC

[Anabaric]

Hi, I currently use Corel Paint Shop Pro X5, and am looking to move to Photoshop and the CC.

However I'm struggling to replicate my daily tasks in PS at the moment.

One of the operations I do daily, is to take pictures on a camera, auto contrast/colour, resize, add a frame, and a website url in text.

In corel I have acheieved this with a small script that does all of this for me. I access this script through their version of Bridge, and its carried out on a batch of images at once with no GUI involvement.

Select all, batch process, go. The files are left saved in the current directory.

Now in PS, I've found the actions menu, and have recorded a script, which works perfectly, however I'm unable to find a way to run this on a batch of files without the GUI.

If I use the Batch process in Bridge it loads the GUI in PS, opens all the images and chews up all my memory     as I carry this out on blocks of 40-100 images at a time.

Is there a different way I'm missing, or a different piece of Adobe software to do this?

[JJMack]

Hotshot automation has two main features: Scripting and Actions. Actions are basically record Photoshop steps,  Steps step step nor real logic till CC where to can add one line if steps.  if (document state) then play action name optionally else play action name.  Script are programs written in one of three  supported scripting languages. JavaScript, VSB or AppleScript.  Actions can play scripts and Actions can run scripts.

Action are easy to create but well crafted actions require some knowledge.  Scripting is programming requires knowledge of Photoshop and programming.

There is a Script the shipts with Photoshop you should look into menu File>Scripts>Image Processor.

• Crafting Actions Package .
  Contains
  • Action Actions Palette Tips.txt
  • Action Creation Guidelines.txt
  • Action Dealing with Image Size.txt
  • Action Enhanced via Scripted Photoshop Functions.txt
  • CraftedActions.atn Sample Action set includes an example Watermarking action
  • Sample Actions.txt Photoshop CraftedActions set saved as a text file.
  • 12 Scripts for actions
  Example
  Download

[Herbert2001]

No, Photoshop is loaded complete with GUI to run batch commands with actions. It is slow and cumbersome for running large batches, and in my experience prone to errors - which is why I have always avoided PS for this type of work (and currently I no longer use PS at all anymore).

Stick with what already works for you. Myself, I fall back to ImageMagick for complex and large batches.

[JJMack]

If Herbert was born in 2001 he'll be 13 this year or perhaps he is living back in 2001.  Photoshop is indeed huge and complex and has a huge learning curve.  If is also powerful  and can batch very complex processing well.  Most user use a small subset of Photoshop features.  Some do not have the time required to learn Photoshop and find less complex alternatives that meets their needs.  There is no image editor better then Photoshop and Photoshop is more then an image editor.  There are other good image editors out there if all you do is image editing. Photoshop little brother Element is capable of much but lack many of the features used by professionals.   Everyone should find the solution that best meets their current needs and future plains .

[Herbert2001]

SIgh. JJMack, why do you feel you have to resort to childish retorts like that when you have neither properly read the OP's original question nor answered it in any meaningful way?

Anabaric's question is about whether Photoshop's batch actions can be run IN THE BACKGROUND WITHOUT PHOTOSHOP'S GUI POPPING UP. Your "answer" to his question then lists of bunch of tutorials and some novice generic and general advice about actions and scripting in PS.

Not very helpful at all. The OP is already happily using PS's actions for batch processing, but just wants PS's GUI to stay hidden, and have the batch run as a background process - just like in Corel Paint Shop Pro X5.

To which I answered: "No, PS will always load entirely and open its GUI when batches are run".

Secondly, I have had many issues with batch processing in PS in the past. And for simpler tasks like the one of the OP or batch image resizing, and so forth, PS's batch is excruciatingly slow compared to other tools.

Look, I am not saying PS isn't the best in terms of overall performance and features. However, in a lot of instances it just is not the best solution for the problem at hand. I would never use PS to add a border to hundreds of web images. Or optimize png images. Or add some blue component to large numbers of images. It's not the optimal tool for that kind of work. Command line tools like ImageMagick can be incredibly helpful (and very powerful) in these cases, and many, many times faster and more memory efficient to boot. They can be completely controlled with just about every programming language out there - your choice.

I have worked with image editing (and I have been an ACE for PS) for a long long time now. I also a developer, an animator, a 3d generalist, a video editor, and have played in many other roles in my life.

So please stop berating other people the way you do in the above posting. You yourself have mentioned in other posts before you have no real interest in learning new products, and limit yourself to Photoshop and PS scripting (If I am wrong here, please tell me). There are many other products on the market that best Photoshop in respective areas, and make PS look like a toy in comparison.

I do concur with you on this: everyone should indeed use software/solutions that fits their particular needs best.

[JJMack]

Yes the op is having problems because he does not know Photoshop.  No new use knows Photoshop. I wrote Photoshop has a huge learning curve. They wrote " I've found the actions menu, and have recorded a script, which works perfectly, however I'm unable to find a way to run this on a batch of files without the GUI."

The OP like all new use have problems.  This brave new use if jumping right in without knowledge like I did when I first got Photoshop and like me is bound to have problems.  He is just scratching the surface of a huge mountain.

He is going to have problem for quite some. It is not possible to teach someone Photoshop in a single append.   If I gave them the answer to their problem.  They would not understand it or be able to do it.  To me it also look like to OP recorded a bad action for use with Photoshop batch Plug-in. For is sounds like files are being opened by the action and being left open when the action ends.  Batch works on a file at a time it does not have all files open at once.

The only way to batch process files without a dialog is with a script. Or an action that has a plug-in dialog setting recorded into it the plug-in step.  When the Action is being recorded the plug-in dialog is displayed by the Plug-in. The user sets the setting for the batch processing into the dialog  and click to run.  The Plug-in then records the settings into the Action step when the action is played the recorded settings are passed to the plug-in and the plug-in bypasses  displaying its dialog and uses the passed settings.  The Action step can also be made to be interactive  by turning on the step dialog.  In that case all the recorded setting will be set into the dialog the user can make modifications to the settings  or accept the ones displayed.   Such a Plug-in is available for downloading on Russell Browns web site.  Its name is "Image Processor Pro". Once installed its accessed from the Bridges tools menu or the Photoshop menu File>Automate>Image Processor Pro... You will also see Batch in the menu File>Automate list. However the Batch Plug-in does not have Action support programmed in so its setting will not be recorded into actions step Batch's dialog will always be displayed...

The way I see it you told them "Stick with what already works for you." I wrote "Everyone should find the solution that best meets their current needs and future plains ."

I do look at other products for Photoshop is getting bugger and Adobe is developing it more and more into a web developing tool.  I stick with Photoshop because I have not found a product the can be automate as well as Photoshop without having to install and maintain a host of other thing like scripting processors like JavaScript, perl , php etc. I'm 73 I do not want to have to learn new programming languages required by other image processor for automation. So I hack at JavaScript and use Photoshop built in JavaScript support.

[Herbert2001]

I understand - I apologize if I came across somewhat heavy handed. What I think the OP has in mind is to have batch processing in PS running in the background, without Photoshop's full interface opening (not merely the dialogs inherent to actions inside PS). And I believe that is not possible atm. Even droplets open Photoshop in full before running the commands.

In the past I have often thought about how it would be very useful to run droplets as a background process, without Photoshop's full GUI opening, i.e. invisible in the background.