Creating a Action to preview multiple blending and curves combo's

troutstreaming

Hi all,

I am trying to find a convenient way to 'proof' a lot of channel blends and curves combinations - using an Action so that I can batch it on selected DNG's overnight. At this point, I have an Action recorded that creates 23 history snapshots of various channel blends and curve shapes and combinations (mostly in LAB - so most, but not all snapshots are in LAB colorspace), but now I am stuck. I can leave the document open and scroll through the history states, but that does not give me anything that is side by side comparable or that I want to run on multiple images - or I can spawn 23 new documents (each history snapshot spawning a new document), but then with multiple documents open Batching get's too complicated for me to figure out, if it is even possible and side by side requires tiling on screen. Ideally, I would like to create and save a 4 x 6 grid digital proof sheet, so that I could quickly look at all of the combinations (original + 23 options.) The next thing I was going to try was to attempt to migrate each snapshot in as a new layer so that they could be saved as a single document with 24 layers (if that is doable), but that still does not get me to a grid of adjustments. Am I missing something easier here? Once I have the layers is it practical to expand the canvas and then use layer selections/copy/paste to decorate the entire background of the canvas in a grid - and then delete all the layers (as part of an Action, so alignment and selections need to be 'actionable')?

Help!

Thanks,

Andy