When passing data-CDs or -DVDs on to customers I like to provide a cover containing a screenshot of the content in list-form (so that the change-dates can be verified) with background, logo, date and some graphic elements added. Which works fine as an Action (with some small Scripts recorded in). But what with Configurators capability to include Scripts I would like to move the whole thing into JavaScript so as to be able to pass a Configurator-Panel on to colleagues without them having to install separate Actions as well. Therefore Im looking for a way to include the generation of a relatively complex path (several hundred points, multiple subPathItems) for an illustrative logo-element in the Script. I may be trying to use the less fitting mechanism in looking for a way to do with a Script what an Action can achieve so effortlessly with »Insert Path«, but could any of You tell me a way to get all the necessary info from an existing path into Script-form? Or would You advise me to simply desist from the intention for Script-length-reasons/other considerations? ... View more

Recently over at the Photoshop Forum the matter of automatically placing images into photographs of TV-screens has come up repeatedly. (Possibly for electronics-catalogs I guess.) Now images are pretty easily placed automatically in frontal shots as long as paths for the screens exist and follow some previously known naming-conventions. Inserting images into slanted shots of the TV-screens is tougher to automate when they are supposed to show perspectival shortening. If the vertical lines in the photograph remain parallel to the vertical borders of the document I think Ive more or less got it (depending on the screen-paths being four-points-only); the subPathItems.pathPoints.anchor-values can be used to calculate the necessary shortening, skewing and scaling; not that I could figure out the math myself though. Because I fragmented the operations (thus sacrificing speed I guess) it can be achieved in a loss-free manner only with Smart Objects in CS4. If all the parallels converge to respective vanishing points on the other hand Im pretty much flabbergasted, because I can hardly make sense of the values I get when recording transformations with the Scripting Listener as it is. Still I can vaguely see a possible, rather complicated way of achieving it by breaking the transformation down into even more separate operations. But when considering what Photomerge can do it seems to me that perspectival transformations should indeed be scriptable   So, does anyone know it its possible to achieve a perspectival transformation in JavaScript by addressing the four corner-points directly, which would seem the easiest way? Can any of You point me to a source that explains the interaction of the various transformation values? Or does a functioning Script for perspectival transformation based on a four-point-path exist already anyway? Its not a matter of urgency, it just seems an interesting problem. ... View more

This time I ask doubly humbled because not only am I weak in JavaScript but Ive come to realize that Ive gotten pretty bad at mathematics   On my calculator the key »sin-1« (sinus to the power of negative one) gets me the angle in degrees if I enter the value I get by dividing the opposite side by the hypothenuse (of a right triangle naturally), but I cant figure out how to achieve that in JavaScript. The calculator-key signifies the arc sine, which the function Math.asin() should also provide but I dont seem to get meaningful results, instead the result looks like what on my calculator is called the hyperbolic sine. Could someone please help me out here Script- and/or math-wise? ... View more

Once again I have a question regarding a way to determine some quality in Photoshop: Suppose I want to save all files that have been newly created and have not yet been saved in Photohop. The saved-criterion would also include files that have been changed since the last save, so I thought the absence of a file-path would make for a good distinguishing characteristic; I only managed to successfully use that in a try-catch-clause though, which is bad form Ive been told: Is there another way to identify a document that has never been saved? ... View more