Photoshop Action not batching

mercphoto

I'm trying to create an Action to batch convert RAW files and save as a JPG. I've done this before. But now I can't get it to over-ride the Save As command on playback. This is forcing me to hit "ok" for each save. Obviously this is not what I'm wanting. And yes, I'm over-riding the Save As in the batch dialog.

Photoshop CS, up-to-date, Mac OS-X Tiger 10.4.2.

DavidTO

mercphoto wrote:

I'm trying to create an Action to batch convert RAW files and save as a JPG. I've done this before. But now I can't get it to over-ride the Save As command on playback. This is forcing me to hit "ok" for each save. Obviously this is not what I'm wanting. And yes, I'm over-riding the Save As in the batch dialog.

Photoshop CS, up-to-date, Mac OS-X Tiger 10.4.2.

I think you DON'T want to override the save as in the batch dialog.

cletus

mercphoto wrote:

I'm trying to create an Action to batch convert RAW files and save as a JPG. I've done this before. But now I can't get it to over-ride the Save As command on playback. This is forcing me to hit "ok" for each save. Obviously this is not what I'm wanting. And yes, I'm over-riding the Save As in the batch dialog.

Photoshop CS, up-to-date, Mac OS-X Tiger 10.4.2.

Does you action contain a "Save As" command or just a "Save" command?

mercphoto

cletus wrote:

Does you action contain a "Save As" command or just a "Save" command?

Well, I click on Save As from the menu, but the action reads Save. Not sure why that is so. However, it could be the problem I guess. Any way to fix this?

Previous actions I have written to do exactly this do work as expected. Unfortunately those actions don't process the files the way I need this batch processed. Is it possibly a Tiger 10.4.2 issue? (I was using Panther before when I recorded those actions).

DavidTO

mercphoto wrote:

Well, I click on Save As from the menu, but the action reads Save. Not sure why that is so. However, it could be the problem I guess. Any way to fix this?

Previous actions I have written to do exactly this do work as expected. Unfortunately those actions don't process the files the way I need this batch processed. Is it possibly a Tiger 10.4.2 issue? (I was using Panther before when I recorded those actions).

No, it's not a Tiger issue. I still think you have the overriding thing wrong. I remember it working exactly opposite to how I thought it should. Try toggling it the other way.

mercphoto

DavidTO wrote:

No, it's not a Tiger issue. I still think you have the overriding thing wrong. I remember it working exactly opposite to how I thought it should. Try toggling it the other way.

I tried both to no avail. But telling it to over-ride save-as is what it took to make my previously recorded action work properly. I ended up resorting to Canon's EOS Viewer Utility to batch my files.

DavidTO

mercphoto wrote:

I tried both to no avail. But telling it to over-ride save-as is what it took to make my previously recorded action work properly. I ended up resorting to Canon's EOS Viewer Utility to batch my files.

You can't just open them all in Camera Raw, select all and save? You need automated than that?

mercphoto

DavidTO wrote:

You can't just open them all in Camera Raw, select all and save? You need automated than that?

No. Yes.

I can't open them all, I had 200+ photos. Each needed a +0.5 exposure compensation in the raw conversion. Each then got a standard sharpening run. Then saved as JPG. EVU got the job done well enough.

jfriend

Here's how I do that...

mercphoto wrote:

No. Yes.

I can't open them all, I had 200+ photos. Each needed a +0.5 exposure compensation in the raw conversion. Each then got a standard sharpening run. Then saved as JPG. EVU got the job done well enough.

Here's how I do that same operation in CS2.

1) Multi-select all 200+ RAW files in Bridge.
2) Open them in ACR.
3) Adjust the first one with the 0.5 exposure comp.
4) Hit the Select All button.
5) Hit the Synchronize button.
6) Check off the exposure checkbox to propagate that setting to the other 200+ images.
7) Hit Done.
8) Create a simple action in PS that does your sharpening with the settings you want on an already open image with no save operation (I use Smart Sharpen).
8) With all 200+ images still multi-selected in Bridge, bring up Tools/Photoshop/Image Processor.
9) Pick the sharpening action you made, select an output directory and set your JPEG settings and Go.

--John

patch29

jfriend wrote:

Here's how I do that same operation in CS2.

CS2 and Bridge are your best tools for easy raw batching.

When I used CS I did have an action that would convert RAW to jpg, so it can be done. I don't have my old action around anymore.

patch29

I did look and I do have a simple action for raw to jpg.

Open
Save as jpg
Close

If you can post a screen shot of your action palette with the raw action open, so we can see all the steps and setting, also include a screenshot of the batch window so we can see those also, maybe there is something we can see that is missing.

mercphoto

patch29 wrote:

I did look and I do have a simple action for raw to jpg.

Open
Save as jpg
Close

If you can post a screen shot of your action palette with the raw action open, so we can see all the steps and setting, also include a screenshot of the batch window so we can see those also, maybe there is something we can see that is missing.

I'll do so when I get home. But the original intention of this post has been lost. I KNEW HOW TO DO THIS BEFORE. Its not working any longer. For whatever reason, I record a new action to do what worked before and it no longer works. Hence my original question of whether this was a Tiger issue and if anyone else had this problem.

patch29

mercphoto wrote:

I'll do so when I get home. But the original intention of this post has been lost. I KNEW HOW TO DO THIS BEFORE. Its not working any longer. For whatever reason, I record a new action to do what worked before and it no longer works. Hence my original question of whether this was a Tiger issue and if anyone else had this problem.

Sorry just trying to figure out what is wrong. I have not had a Tiger/CS/CS2 problem. I would not think Tiger has anything to do with it.

For whatever reason I do think certain updates mess with our standard PS settings. I was having problems printing to my 2400 the other day and finally noticed that my printing profile had changed, but I did not do it, possibly it happened with a PS update, perhaps something along those lines has happened to you and you are just overlooking something?

mercphoto

More info
It appears my action is being recorded differently now than they were before. Tiger issue? Who knows. When I compare the "Save" part of the action I see one key difference: in the action that works, the "in" field is empty. In the action that does not work the "in" field has a path. I can only conclude that this difference is what makes the Save-As dialog box pop-up when I try to batch this action.

So, how do I edit the details of an action?

colourbox

mercphoto wrote:

So, how do I edit the details of an action?

At the most basic level, all you have to do to edit an action step is double-click it. For a Save step, you have to double-click it while a file is open. Here is the tricky part. You have to only change the parts you want to set for all files in the batch, and not change anything you want to remain unique to each file. For example, I edited a Save step last week, and later to my horror I found the edited action was overwriting the same filename over and over, instead of saving each file in the batch as its own separate filename. I must have touched the filename in the dialog box when editing it. Good thing I was playing with a test folder. If you didn't see a path before and you see one now, the target folder in the Save box was probably changed the last time the action was edited. The action only records changes to options you actually alter. I hope that helps.

mercphoto

colourbox wrote:

At the most basic level, all you have to do to edit an action step is double-click it. For a Save step, you have to double-click it while a file is open. Here is the tricky part. You have to only change the parts you want to set for all files in the batch, and not change anything you want to remain unique to each file. For example, I edited a Save step last week, and later to my horror I found the edited action was overwriting the same filename over and over, instead of saving each file in the batch as its own separate filename. I must have touched the filename in the dialog box when editing it. Good thing I was playing with a test folder. If you didn't see a path before and you see one now, the target folder in the Save box was probably changed the last time the action was edited. The action only records changes to options you actually alter. I hope that helps.

How do I make a screen capture in OS-X? I tried the above. I double-clicked the Save-As part of the action with an open image. However, the "In:" field of the Save-As action still has a path in it. My old actions have that field blank. And that is fundamentally what is causing the grief when trying to batch the action.

Ultimately the simple solution to this is to not have a save-as portion to the action at all. Simply have File Browser "open and close" the image when batching. To keep from over-writing the original, I'll copy all originals to a new directory, then batch the action on the copies.

DavidTO

mercphoto wrote:

How do I make a screen capture in OS-X?

cmd-shift-3 = capture screen
cmd-shift-4 = capture selection (drag)
cmd-shift-4 and then AFTER press spacebar = capture window (cursor turns into camera and will capture the window you click on)

OSX captures PDF by default. There's a capture widget that lets you set the capture size and filetype, and there's something else that Patch29 uses, search and you'll find it. Otherwise you have to convert to jpg to attach to a post.

mercphoto

DavidTO wrote:

cmd-shift-3 = capture screen
cmd-shift-4 = capture selection (drag)
cmd-shift-4 and then AFTER press spacebar = capture window (cursor turns into camera and will capture the window you click on)

OSX captures PDF by default. There's a capture widget that lets you set the capture size and filetype, and there's something else that Patch29 uses, search and you'll find it. Otherwise you have to convert to jpg to attach to a post.

Here is a working action, recorded before I upgraded to the latest-greatest OS-X. Notice the "In:" field of the Save is blank.


In any new action I record with a Save-As the In: field is NOT blank. And then no matter what I do when batching from File Browser, I can't get the action to run the save w/o having the dialog play.