PS CS4 Action to make tiles?

takeflightphoto · April 4, 2010

I want to divide an image precisely into a number of tiles (panes) that are each individual files for printing. Is there a PS Action that will do this, or anything else out there that anyone knows of?

Essentially, I want to take a 16 x 20 photo, make it into twenty 4 x 4 images that can be dye sub printed and transferred to ceramic tiles that can then be applied to a bathroom tile wall. The ideal action or application would allow a grid to be specified (# high x # wide) and the dimensions, and it would slice the image up and make the requisite number of .jpg images, naming them sequentially. I am nottageek, so writing one myself is out of the question.

Any thoughts?

jon

malch · April 5, 2010

takeflightphoto wrote:

I want to divide an image precisely into a number of tiles (panes) that are each individual files for printing. Is there a PS Action that will do this, or anything else out there that anyone knows of?

Download ImageMagick -- it's free:

http://www.imagemagick.org/script/index.php

Then use some variation of this command:

convert -crop 400x400 DSE_5463.jpg mytiles%d.jpg

I just tried it and I think this will do exactly what you want in a second or two.

However, you should probably check the documentation for the convert command since there are a gazillion other options you may wish to take advantage of. It's an impressive range of options:

http://www.imagemagick.org/script/convert.php

takeflightphoto · April 5, 2010

Thanks, Malch. While I appreciate the reference, as I said...nottageek...

I downloaded this and the whole operation of even getting it on my machine has me lost, let alone entering commands with variables. What I'm more interested in is something that works within Photoshop much like the grid generator in Corel Draw, where you enter the number of horizontal cells and vertical cells and it automatically generates a grid.

I suppose I could just individually crop out the 4x4 squares from a 16x20 image and name them tile1, tile2...tile20. There are companies out there that make metalprint collages from submitted images, so someone has figured out how to automate this process. I was hoping it was a PS action or plug in that someone could share.

jon

malch · April 5, 2010

takeflightphoto wrote:

I suppose I could just individually crop out the 4x4 squares from a 16x20 image and name them tile1, tile2...tile20. There are companies out there that make metalprint collages from submitted images, so someone has figured out how to automate this process. I was hoping it was a PS action or plug in that someone could share.
jon

Well, personally, I think the ImageMagick approach is simpler but, it seems that the functionality you need is right there in CS4.

1. Load the image and find the Slice Tool (it shares the spot with the Crop Tool). Drag the Slice Tool over the whole image.

2. Right click on the image and select "Divide Slices". Select Horiz and Vertical, 400 pixels on each.

3. Now File Save for Web. Adjust the image format/quality parameter and click Save. It pops up another dialog where you can select Save As Type "HTML and Images".

4. You should end up with an HTML file in the selected folder. Ignore that but look in the "images" sub folder and there should be your tiles ;-)

takeflightphoto · April 5, 2010

Absolutely.......

PERFECT!!! THANK YOU!!!!

PS CS4 Action to make tiles?

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