Any ideas??

[dazzdeadmeadow]

Hi guys,

First post on here and hoping you guys can help.

I have started a new job doing 360 product photography for a company. The previous guy didn't leave much of a handover and I'm more of a video guy than photographer, so my Photoshop skills need to grow! The guy was using a Canon 5d and taking pics at 5760 x 3840. He appears to be then removing the backgrounds, replacing with a white solid and resizing the images to 1024 x 1024 for uploading to the companies e-commerce site.

He left a few screenshots of the process, this being the most helpful

My problems are as follows.....

If I try to resize these images this obviously throws the aspect ratio out. So, I assume, he must of been cropping the images.

It seems he was using Actions to do this. The Action in question, is missing from Photoshop, and I can't work out how a crop action could be applied to a set of photos where the object in the photo may get a corner cropped out due to it being photographed at different angles.

Is it possible that the Action is hidden somewhere in Photoshop and I might be able to locate it and save me a heck of a lot of trouble?

I hope this all makes sense and will be grateful of any advice.

Cheers guys

 

[polarwoc]

It appears like the former employee had all actions nicely set up, as his screenshots show.
I do not think you can crop a 5760 X 3840 image into 1024 X 1024 while retaining the image boundaries. You might end up truncating the image. Your best bet is to resize one of the dimensions, maybe width to 1024 and let the height arrange itself proportionally.

Your best bet is to search for the action, because it seems like it was all set up before.

What does that 1024 action do?

 

[IamSam]

You state that this is a screenshot he provided. Was this his own version of Ps? Are you using the same computer and Ps? If not, did you load the action in your version of Ps?

 

[polarwoc]

Oh, Gosh! I did not think of that. I assumed the OP is working on an office computer on which the previous guy also worked on.

 

[polarwoc]

If I try to resize these images this obviously throws the aspect ratio out. So, I assume, he must of been cropping the images.

Aspect ratio would be out if you force both dimensions onto the image. Reason? 5760/3840 = 1.5 while 1024/1024 = 1.

 

[dazzdeadmeadow]

Hi guys,
Same computer and same version of Photoshop!

I literally can't find any of his actions.....the default ones are the only ones to load up.

 

[polarwoc]

Is it possible he deleted the actions before he left? Can you get in touch with him?
If not, describe in detail as to what you want with an example and maybe someone can assist with the actions you need.

 

[dazzdeadmeadow]

Is it possible he deleted the actions before he left? Can you get in touch with him?
If not, describe in detail as to what you want with an example and maybe someone can assist with the actions you need.

Hi and Happy New Year!!

Sorry for slow reply, festive season and all that! Unfortunately, nobody has a contact for the previous employee. I can't see why he would of deleted the actions, but maybe!

From what I can tell, he was removing the backgrounds of the images and replacing with white then resizing the images to 1024 x 1024. I can't understand how he was achieving this through actions yet the image was not distorted after the resize. I can do this in scripts via the image processor. Can this be made into an action?? I have attached one of his images. This was resized from 5760 x 3840 to 1024 x 1024

 

[polarwoc]

Hi again!
It looks like after separating the backgroud, he is placing the image onto a 1024 X 1024 white background for uniformity.

Before we delve into scripting options, did you have a look in the Presets\Scripts folder? See if there are any non standard scripts or folders? Maybe file names with keywords 1024, resize, etc should trigger suspicion. If you can locate them, it means the scripts are right there and need not be reworked on.

 

[dazzdeadmeadow]

Hi again!
It looks like after separating the backgroud, he is placing the image onto a 1024 X 1024 white background for uniformity.

Before we delve into scripting options, did you have a look in the Presets\Scripts folder? See if there are any non standard scripts or folders? Maybe file names with keywords 1024, resize, etc should trigger suspicion. If you can locate them, it means the scripts are right there and need not be reworked on.

hi,

Can you access that folder within Photoshop? I looked on the C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CC 2018\Presets\Scripts I'm assuming that's the location?? If so, nothing.

Thanks again

 

[IamSam]

Sorry for slow reply, festive season and all that! Unfortunately, nobody has a contact for the previous employee. I can't see why he would of deleted the actions, but maybe!

I'm also sorry for the late reply. If you have looked under............./presets/Actions/..... and there's nothing there, then he has removed the actions. If there's nothing under Scripts as well, then you are starting from scratch. I personally am not at all surprised that he removed them upon exiting the workplace.

I will experiment with an "action" solution.

 

[thebestcpu]

I don’t know the specific arrangements with the prior person and the company you work for yet if regular backups were made of the computer, the backups might very well have all the files of interest. Worth checking if you can avoid starting from scratch.

 

[polarwoc]

If the OP can exhaust all possible easy solutions mentioned above, the scripts or actions can be dealt with. So, we are going in the order of easier to harder solutions.

 

[dazzdeadmeadow]

Hi guys,

Amazing responses, truly thanks!

As far as I know, no backups were made. I have attached the description he left to what he was doing. As you can see, the actions are clearly displayed in his actions panel. Also attached another image that presumably went through the process described, originally shot at 5760 x 3840.

As I said, many thanks folks! Stars you are!

 

[polarwoc]

Do you know what is happening in Step 3 when "Shields" action is selected?

So, most of the process is what needs to be done on LR. The only actions that need to be created are Step 3 "Shields" and Step 6 "Resize". This is all you require assistance with - is that right?

 

[dazzdeadmeadow]

Hi,

Back again. Hope you had a good weekend! I assumed that that step 3 was an automatic insert of a white background?!?!?

 

[polarwoc]

If that is the case, I am uncertain why you would need an action for each of the steps.
Before you get to Step 3 "Shields", you would have deleted the background and extracted the image of the accessory you photographed. All that the action is doing is to create a layer under the accessory layer on the layers list and filling it with White.

Also with Step 6 "Resize", all that the action is doing is to resize the 5000 Px image to 1024 Px. Just press Cmd or Ctrl + T and key in 1024 on the top bar that appears against Width.

It is up to you if you want to 1) just do the process manually or 2) do two actions and press the two action buttons or 3) make one action combining the addition of white BG and resizing the image.

Please let me know if you are following or if you need assistance.

 

[dazzdeadmeadow]

Thanks so much again. It has been very difficult to understand why he was doing half the things he was doing! I don't even know why he was replacing the backgrounds as the original photos are shot with a pure white background.

To make matters worse, I have been unable to upload any images due to the uploader software not working, it was developed in the 80's!

Many thanks Polarwoc. I'll see how things go, but may call upon your marvellous skills once again!

 

[polarwoc]

Thanks so much again. It has been very difficult to understand why he was doing half the things he was doing! I don't even know why he was replacing the backgrounds as the original photos are shot with a pure white background.

To make matters worse, I have been unable to upload any images due to the uploader software not working, it was developed in the 80's!

Many thanks Polarwoc. I'll see how things go, but may call upon your marvellous skills once again!

If you feel some steps are not necessary, just go with what you feel is right and arrive at a more efficient work flow. You can always make changes as and when needed. I see your point of not needing to separate background - just resizing would suffice.

There are plenty of uploading software available. The software you use is just uploading from local computer onto the web server.

 

[dazzdeadmeadow]

The uploading software is specific to the company's site and the 360 images are hosted on their own servers. Hopefully, a redesign will take place!