Expert: LizaL - 2/2/2005

Question
Dear Liza,

Thanks for your timeless reply. I can solve the problem by Automate now. Actually I using Automate to make all photo as the photo take by film with the diffuser filter. But I afraid photoshop cannot recognise which file should be pasted, or have any other solution or software can achieve the goal.
Now you provide the solution then I have confidence to try using photoshop, and that's ok with the automate.
Lastly, is there any software can achieve this simple goal(paste picture on other pictures)?



BR,
Damon Chee

-------------------------
Followup To
Question -
Basically, I want to add the frame to all of my pictures. I am using
Photoshop7.0
So I think that I can make a picture including the frame only, then copy
this file to all of my picture to make all pictures with the frame.
Is this the best way to achieve this goal? And how can I make the action
and automate this function?

Thanks in advance

BR,
Damon
Answer -
Hi Damon,

First of all, I'm sorry I wasn't able to get back to you sooner.

You're right, you can make a picture frame and then copy and paste the frame into all of your image files. And you're also right, that it can be done much easier by automating the task. However, there are some limitations to automating. One big one is that it's hard, if not impossible, to do things within automation and batch processing such as saving one file and opening another.

But I'll walk you through the steps for creating an action, and then using that action via the Batch command.

1. To create an action, make sure you have the image file open that you want to create the action for, and also the Actions palette.

2. On the bottom of the Actions palette is a little page icon, right next to the Trash can icon. Click the page icon to create a new action. You'll see a dialog box asking you to name this action. Go ahead and name it; you can also specify its location within the Actions palette, and choose a color for it, although these things are optional.

3. Once you've done this, click the round Record button on the bottom of the Actions palette. The button will turn Red to indicate that it's "recording."

Basically, an action is like a macro. You're storing a set of keystrokes, just like you might do in a program like Microsoft Word.

At this point, just execute the actions you want to do -- in your case, create (or paste) a frame into your picture.

4. When you're finished, click the square Stop button at the bottom of the Actions palette. You should also see this new action listed in your default actions.

5. To execute the action, with your intended image open, make sure the check box is selected beside your new action and click the triangular Play button on the bottom of the Actions palette. Watch the actions, and see if they're what you want to have happen. If not, you can go to the Actions palette and edit the keystrokes -- for instance, trash the ones you don't want, or move them around.

Here's a little movie that shows how to do this:
http://little-works.com/all_experts/actions.mov

You can see that I opened an image, did a very simple selection and stroked it to give it a "frame," then saved it, closed it and opened another file. At this point I stopped the action, and now I can apply it to my next image.

Of course, what I've done is just create a new action, and apply it, and I'll have to manually apply it to all the images I want to create frames for.

You can use the Batch command, but it's pretty exacting, and in my opinion, not that easy to handle. But here's how to do that.

1. Create an action, then go to the File pulldown menu, select Automate, and from there select Batch.

2. Fill out the Batch menu with the following: the name of the Action you want to use; the Source folder, which should contain all the images you want to apply the action to; The Destination folder, which is where you want all the images to end up. If you want the Batch command to ignore any "Open" or "Save" commands, you'll need to tick those boxes as well.

See this screen shot for what the Batch command dialog should look like:
http://little-works.com/all_experts/batch.png

I'm not keen on the Batch command because for one thing -- and I'll be honest with you here! -- I can never get it to work the way I want, LOL! I get stuck on the saving and opening of images, to be honest. But don't let me sway you -- you might have much better luck with it than I have! (Personally, the automation I like the best is Contact Sheet II. That one always seems to work, and work right.)

Another thing to consider -- with a project like yours, you'll find that you'll first need to make sure all your images are the same size, so they can have the same size frame automatically applied to them through the action that you write.

So anyway, that's how it's done -- and I hope I haven't sounded discouraging!

I do hope this helps, and please post back if I can answer any other questions for you. And let me know how this goes! Maybe we can figure out an easier way for you to frame all your images.


Lisa

Answer
Hi again Damon,

If I understand your question correctly, you're asking if there's another software package that will handle the Batch automation more effectively than Photoshop. I'm not aware of any, but I did a little research and came up with some alternatives you might want to check out.

1. Corel Photo Paint, which is part of the Corel Draw Graphics Suite:
http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=Corel2/Home

This is not a software package I've used; I've always used Photoshop. But I did find a batch processing tutorial using Photo Paint here:
http://graphicssoft.about.com/library/extra/blcpp_batch.htm


2. This package is shareware, and has a simple batch automation tool that will automatically add frames to any photo. Now just how much you can customize these frames, I don't know -- but you might want to check it out. You can try it free for 3 weeks.
http://www.pixby.com/index.html


3. Finally, here's a link for four products that you might want to check out: ACDSee, CompuPic, ImageRobot and ThumbsPlus.
http://www.manifest-tech.com/ce_photo/image_batch.htm


As I said before, I've always used Photoshop for batch processing, but find it has limitations.

One of the biggest limitations I think you might face is making sure the frame you want to paste on your pictures will fit all your pictures in the way that you want it to. In other words, if your frame is 2x3, and you have several pictures that are 4x5, it won't do a lot of good to use Batching -- your frame will be too small on those pictures. So if I were you, I'd take into account how many photos are involved, along with their sizes, before I decided to use Batch processing. The size issue might really throw you off if you want to Batch process everything.


Anyway, I hope this helps, and that you're able to find something that suits your needs. Please post back if you need any more help!


Lisa