What's new
Photoshop Gurus Forum

Welcome to Photoshop Gurus forum. Register a free account today to become a member! It's completely free. Once signed in, you'll enjoy an ad-free experience and be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Please Help


Tony DiPietro

Member
Messages
20
Likes
0
Hi everybody. I am new here but I probably shouldn't have made my first post in the newbie thread, since this is more of general Photoshop question, so I'm putting it here now.

Any help to the issue I'm having would be greatly appreciated. Here is the situation and what I'm trying to accomplish. I'm looking at 100 images inside of a folder in Adobe Bridge.

All images are the same size. They are the front and back cover artwork to 50 different DVD titles. The files are named by the DVD's SKU numbers and end in a F for front and B for back. For example 16724-F and 16724-B.

Is there any thing automated I can do that will take the front cover (16724-F) place it next to the back cover (16724-B) and combine it into a single jpg image? I would like the back on the left and the front on the right. I need a solution that involves doing this to all 100 images in the folder at once, ending up with 50 different jpg images, each image being the full front and back DVD cover artwork for each title.

If anybody could help get me through this I would really appreciate it. Thanks a bunch.

Tony
 

SeniorS

Guru
Messages
1,747
Likes
520
Be patient, maybe someone who knows good solution is offline right now.

What i can advice, you can use Contact Sheet II to make combined files. You'll have to save them after they "apear" in PS (or make batch which saves opened files as jpg to some location).
In Contact Sheet choose folder where images is, set document size to width = cover width multilpe 2, height=cover height. Resolution, mode depending of your needs. Leave "Flattern All Layers" on.
Thumbnails, across first, switch off "Use Auto-Spacing, set Vertical/Horizontal to 0.
Columns = 2, Rows=1.
Switch off Use Filename as Caption.
Press OK.

It will generate (theoreticly) 50 files of combined 2 images. Now save them or as i said record saving to jpg action.

P.S. Check if PS joined right pieces. Maybe you'll need to rename them to work properly.

Or just join them manually. 100 files isn't so much. Would take few hours but no need of many skills.
 
Last edited:

Tony DiPietro

Member
Messages
20
Likes
0
Thanks. I know it wouldn't be a whole lot to do it manually. But I have about 300 folders like this, and many of them have 200 images per folder instead of 100 like I gave in the example. Thank you though.
 

Paul MR

The Script Master
Messages
382
Likes
206
Here is a Photoshop script that should combine your files, put the unziped script into your Application presets/scripts folder
Restart Photoshop if it was open so that it can pick up the new script.
To use, make sure you have no documents open.
File - Scripts and select the script.
It will prompt for the folder where your files are kept and then combine and output the files to a new folder called combined.
http://www.scriptsrus.talktalk.net/download/DVD-Cover.zip
 

SeniorS

Guru
Messages
1,747
Likes
520
Then yes, manualy doing is madness.
If you don't find any script then try my method, maybe it'll work for you if you have PS3. If you have PS5 then i don't know how to make Contact Sheet yet.

P.S. hehe :) ... looks like your problem solved thanked to Paul MR.
 

Paul MR

The Script Master
Messages
382
Likes
206
Hi, I use ExtendScript Toolkit that get installed along with Photoshop/Illustrator etc.
It's useful as you can do all your testing with it.
 

SeniorS

Guru
Messages
1,747
Likes
520
Thanks Paul MR, i'll check it definetly.
Viewed that script source looks very intresting :)

P.S. bad thing is that i haven't do anything in C for years but thats like with bike.
 

Paul MR

The Script Master
Messages
382
Likes
206
You will find all the documentation is installed on your machine in the application scripting folder, also help is available in ExtendScript Toolkit.
It's Adobe's version of JavaScript.
I'm sure you won't have any problems, I started learning in my late sixties and found it quite easy.
 

Tony DiPietro

Member
Messages
20
Likes
0
Many thanks! I've been busy today so I haven't got a chance to try it yet. I'll let you know how it goes for me when I do. Thanks again! :)
 

Tony DiPietro

Member
Messages
20
Likes
0
Here is a Photoshop script that should combine your files, put the unziped script into your Application presets/scripts folder
Restart Photoshop if it was open so that it can pick up the new script.
To use, make sure you have no documents open.
File - Scripts and select the script.
It will prompt for the folder where your files are kept and then combine and output the files to a new folder called combined.
http://www.scriptsrus.talktalk.net/download/DVD-Cover.zip

I'm lost. I tried inserting the script how you said but I don't see it there when I go to file>scripts
 

Tony DiPietro

Member
Messages
20
Likes
0
I'm a little slow obviously but I see it in file>scripts now. I selected it and it prompted to choose the folder like you said. I picked a folder but now what? I see the folder called combined but it's empty. Please bear in mind that I'm only a week into exploring Photoshop for the very first time, so helping me is probably like trying to teach Calculus to a 5 year old at this point :)
 

Tony DiPietro

Member
Messages
20
Likes
0
Thanks for the script. I wish I could figure out how to get it to work. Like I said, I'm really new to all of this so that is more than likely the problem. I did however learn how to create an action which takes care of it pretty quick. About five minutes for a 100 image folder. Thanks again for trying to help though.

Tony
 

Paul MR

The Script Master
Messages
382
Likes
206
This might help, the folder where the script should be placed:
PC: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS#\Presets\Scripts
MAC: <hard drive>/Applications/Adobe Photoshop CS#/ Presets/Scripts
Where # is the CS version.
 

Tony DiPietro

Member
Messages
20
Likes
0
That is where I placed it. I see it under file>scripts now, but once it prompts me to select a folder and I do, nothing happens. The combined folder shows up in the folder I selected but it's just empty. I'm working with CS5.5
 

Paul MR

The Script Master
Messages
382
Likes
206
A couple of questions..

Are all the files JPEG?
Are all the files named something-B.jpg something-F.jpg
Are all the front and back files in the same folder?

If you could answer these, I will test it somemore.
 

Tony DiPietro

Member
Messages
20
Likes
0
How the files are listed vary a little depending on the group of DVDs I'm working with. Sometimes when I download the images from the manufacturer's web site, the front will be something like 105177-F.jpg for the front... and 105177-B.jpg for the back.

Other times with different groups of DVDs, they don't actually change it from F to B, they just place it on a different URL. In this situation they download as 105177-F.jpg for the front, and since the file is the same for the back, it downloads as 105177-F (1).jpg for the back.

It would be best if they could be combined with the back always on left. The files are always .jpg

Thanks a lot for seeing what you can do!
 

Paul MR

The Script Master
Messages
382
Likes
206
Ah, that might explain why it isn't working for you, at the moment it looks for the backs' any file that ends in B.jpg so if they are in the other format it won't find them.
I will see if there is a way to check.
 

Top