Expert: Glen Demers - 3/20/2010

Question
I have a lot of images I wish for the dimensions of the canvas size to be uniform, before the image is resized. Please could you let me know if there is a way to automate the canvas dimensions to equal width and height - ie the original image that has canvas dimensions 1500x2174 pixels needs to be "squared" to 2174x2174 pixels, before the actual image is resized with a automation action.
This needs to be dynamic as the raw images have different dimensions, and so each image would need to have "matched" widths & heights.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Best Regards

Answer
Hi Simon,

I don't know of a way to do this using actions, however, if you create an action to open up the Canvas Size window, you'll be able to run through them quickly.

Create new action and select "select menu item" from the flyout menu. Then select Image>Canvas Size to insert it into the action. If you just try recording the action, whatever value you input when recording the action will be in the action. If you try recording it without changing any values the command won't "stick" to the action, by inserting a menu item into the action it will bring up the dialog box for each image. You can quickly type in the dimension needed. I would set this up to batch process an entire folder, File>Automate>Batch. Try the batch on a few copies to make sure it runs smoothly. You may need to turn off the "nags" about profile mismatches etc. to speed up the process.

Hope this helps,
Glen Demers
Adobe Certified Expert, Photoshop 7
Prepress Technician, Best Printing Online
www.bestprintingonline.com

For more Photoshop tips please visit our help pages here: http://www.bestprintingonline.com/photoshop.htm