CS2 Bridge automation?

wxwax · May 2, 2005

So I downloaded the demo CS2 and Bridge last night.

I then spent a couple of hours doing something manually that I'm sure can be done automagically, if I only knew how.

Here's the task: I have 4 GB of headshots on several CF cards. I want to open them in RAW, adjust the exposure, contrast and brightness, then save them as jpegs. Last night I was able to do it manually, and save my RAW conversion settings.

I expect to change my RAW conversion settings when I change memory cards (we shifted clothing and location), but on each card all of the shots will get identical treatment.

Last night I had to do each shot individually, which is a pain when you have 271 shots on a card.

Is anyone able to instruct me, in language a 3 year old could understand, how to automate this process?

Thanks.

DavidTO · May 2, 2005

In Capture One you can apply settings of one image to all selected. I'm pretty sure PSCS does this, too. It's an option (or alt) click thing, I believe.

There's also Dr. Brown's Image Processor, which might help.

wxwax · May 2, 2005

DavidTO wrote:

In Capture One you can apply settings of one image to all selected. I'm pretty sure PSCS does this, too. It's an option (or alt) click thing, I believe.

There's also Dr. Brown's Image Processor, which might help.

Interesting link. It looks like his jpeg converter doesn't change exposure settings, unfortunately, and that's something I really need to do.

wxwax · May 2, 2005

DavidTO wrote:

In Capture One you can apply settings of one image to all selected. I'm pretty sure PSCS does this, too. It's an option (or alt) click thing, I believe.

There's also Dr. Brown's Image Processor, which might help.

Oops, never mind, I'm playing the tutorial. Great stuff!

DavidTO · May 2, 2005

wxwax wrote:

Interesting link. It looks like his jpeg converter doesn't change exposure settings, unfortunately, and that's something I really need to do.

Capture One has a 30-day demo.

mercphoto · May 2, 2005

wxwax wrote:

So I downloaded the demo CS2 and Bridge last night.

I then spent a couple of hours doing something manually that I'm sure can be done automagically, if I only knew how.

Here's the task: I have 4 GB of headshots on several CF cards. I want to open them in RAW, adjust the exposure, contrast and brightness, then save them as jpegs. Last night I was able to do it manually, and save my RAW conversion settings.

I expect to change my RAW conversion settings when I change memory cards (we shifted clothing and location), but on each card all of the shots will get identical treatment.

Last night I had to do each shot individually, which is a pain when you have 271 shots on a card.

Is anyone able to instruct me, in language a 3 year old could understand, how to automate this process?

Thanks.

I don't have CS2, but with CS you can do what you want with the File Browser (to select which images you want to process, and to batch them on an action to do the processing).

I am going on memory here, but I believe this is what you have to do. Within File Browser start recording an action. Now, open a single RAW file and choose the settings you want to process. Then click on OK, and choose the next processing you want (from within CS). End with a "save - as", selecting JPG, the compression level you want, etc. Stop recording. Now, close the window.

Next select all the images you want to apply this to in File Broswer, go to Automate, Batch. Select the action. Override the file open and file save. Choose a destination folder. Choose a file naming convention. Let er' rip.

I'm sure CS2 has a new way to do this. But knowing this might help you figure out the CS2 way of doing things.

wxwax · May 2, 2005

Excellent, thanks guys. I appreciate the help.

DavidTO · May 2, 2005

Hate to beat a dead horse, but...

In Capture One you make the changes to one image, select all, click a button, click OK, and you're done. They all have the same settings.

wxwax · May 2, 2005

DavidTO wrote:

Hate to beat a dead horse, but...

In Capture One you make the changes to one image, select all, click a button, click OK, and you're done. They all have the same settings.

Thanks, not beating a dead horse at all, I welcome all help!

mercphoto · May 2, 2005

DavidTO wrote:

Hate to beat a dead horse, but...

In Capture One you make the changes to one image, select all, click a button, click OK, and you're done. They all have the same settings.

Wow, that's easy! Canon's EVU was nearly as simple, actually, now that I think of it. One reason I don't like to use ACR.

patch29 · May 2, 2005

DavidTO wrote:

Hate to beat a dead horse, but...

In Capture One you make the changes to one image, select all, click a button, click OK, and you're done. They all have the same settings.

Adjusting in ACR 3.0 via Bridge is a lot faster than Capture One, I am in the process of testing it out and may switch over, it is that much faster.

I did a RAW batch test in Bridge. It takes some steps, but it is not too bad.

From memory, so if it is not right, sorry.

Choose your folder in bridge.

If I had large groups as you do, I would either do a folder for each or select the appropriate range of images.

Then right click or use menu to Open in Camera Raw.

This should give you the ACR panel, but with multiple images you now have a strip of images on the side.

Select all, then make your corrections to one of them, you can save your settings, it should read save "X" # of images, hit it, set you save to folder and file type, it will do the rest, then move on to the next set. You could choose every image to begin with and select a range, save and move on.

David, what I do like about ACR 3.0, besides the speed, is the ability to adjust white balance and exposure on the same view. I constantly click back and forth in Capture One. Adobe has done a very good job with ACR 3.0 and Bridge.

Another cool thing in Bridge is you can have multiple windows open with different jobs.

I will probably at a minimum use ACR to generate my previews, contact sheets and web galleries for all the images, due to speed and automation in PS. I want to take some time to compare final files from both ACR and Capture One to see if I will go back to Capture One or switch to Capture One for selected images that will be printed.

patch29 · May 2, 2005

Here is a link to a pdf download of ACR 3.0/Bridge shortcuts from photoshopnews.com

DavidTO · May 2, 2005

patch29 wrote:

Adjusting in ACR 3.0 via Bridge is a lot faster than Capture One, I am in the process of testing it out and may switch over, it is that much faster.

I did a RAW batch test in Bridge. It takes some steps, but it is not too bad.

From memory, so if it is not right, sorry.

Choose your folder in bridge.

If I had large groups as you do, I would either do a folder for each or select the appropriate range of images.

Then right click or use menu to Open in Camera Raw.

This should give you the ACR panel, but with multiple images you now have a strip of images on the side.

Select all, then make your corrections to one of them, you can save your settings, it should read save "X" # of images, hit it, set you save to folder and file type, it will do the rest, then move on to the next set. You could choose every image to begin with and select a range, save and move on.

David, what I do like about ACR 3.0, besides the speed, is the ability to adjust white balance and exposure on the same view. I constantly click back and forth in Capture One. Adobe has done a very good job with ACR 3.0 and Bridge.

Another cool thing in Bridge is you can have multiple windows open with different jobs.

I will probably at a minimum use ACR to generate my previews, contact sheets and web galleries for all the images, due to speed and automation in PS. I want to take some time to compare final files from both ACR and Capture One to see if I will go back to Capture One or switch to Capture One for selected images that will be printed.

That all sounds great. I'll have to check it out. Can you output multiple file types/qualities? That's another thing I like about Capture One--you can output quickproofs at the same time you're processing a full-sized jpeg or tiff.

But the new ACR sounds much improved. I'll have to check it out.

patch29 · May 2, 2005

DavidTO wrote:

TCan you output multiple file types/qualities? That's another thing I like about Capture One--you can output quickproofs at the same time you're processing a full-sized jpeg or tiff.

That I do not know, you could go back and hit you selection again with a different file size, but I am not sure if that is as easy as Capture One. I have not tried to do it. Just thinking about it, a quick way would be to go through all of one file type and then go back and run them again or create your quick proofs via a PS action, not sure if you can automate all that at once.

There is a lot to learn with PS CS 2.0 and bridge.

wxwax · May 3, 2005

DavidTO wrote:

In Capture One you can apply settings of one image to all selected. I'm pretty sure PSCS does this, too. It's an option (or alt) click thing, I believe.

There's also Dr. Brown's Image Processor, which might help.

Thanks for all of your advice. I ended up using Dr. Brown's Image Processor and things went very well. I used the jpeg-only converter, not a problem.

This exercise is making me take a second look at the CS file browser too, I like those big thumbnails.

CS2 Bridge automation?

Comments