Questions for PhotoShop Experts

by philg

Back in Cambridge now with 1500 photos from Ecuador and Peru.  All of the photos are in Olympus Raw Format, which Adobe PhotoShop CS supposedly understands.  Thus a few questions for those readers who are PhotoShop experts….


What I really like to do with my images is


1) make several sizes of JPEG from each original


2) wrap each JPEG in a black border


3) write a “copyright philg@mit.edu” note into the bottom right corner of each photo (within the black border but not at a constant x-y pixel location due to some pictures being horizonals and some being verticals)


4) maybe build a Web page showing thumbnails linked to other sizes (though I would be willing to do this myself afterwards with a Perl script)


Can this be done with PhotoShop CS batch processing or must I stick with ImageMagick and the almost-10-years-old Perl script that I’ve been using on Unix?

33 thoughts on “Questions for PhotoShop Experts”

  1. You don’t need a perl script unless (you have to do things like set a different width for each photo){
    Create a transparent image with the desired border. Place the text. Copy the bottom left part.
    Start recording. Open a sample photo. Set the required size. Select all. Stroke with desired width. Paste the buffer. Select all again. Align the layer in the bottom left. Flatten layers. Save&close.
    }else(if you need the the passpartout outside the photo or need them in different sizes depending on the orientation)
    {You can write a perl script or try photoshop scripting host}

    Great posts. Hope to be of help.

  2. Philip,

    There are various ways to do it. With Photoshop you can do it via the menu File > Automate > Web Photo Gallery. This provides you with several options, which deal with teh sizes, and copyright thing. I often use this for the resizing and copyrighting and just delete the rest of the stuff he generates.

    Another options, which I personally really like is not with Photoshop, but with the little freebee program calld IrfanView you can do the resizing and copyrighting really fast and easy. This program is available through http://www.tucows.com for example. Here you go into the Batching function via File > Batch Conversion/Rename and explore the options in the window for all the things you would like to do with it.

    Good luck and please let me know when you publish them. Would like to see some impressoins from those countries far way.

    Jochem

  3. At least the points 1 and 2 and maybe 3 could be automated with “Actions” in PhotoShop.
    You just need to name and Action.. open a test Jpeg and record each step applied to that image. Resize, Filter, SaveAs, etc. (is like create a macro in Ms Excel or Word)
    Then selecting batch proccess and referencing the Action created You can convert all Your files in a directory.
    With IrfranView there is loss of color when You create thumbnails

  5. There’s more choice in image processing tham just Photoshop or ImageMagick, Philip!

    Admitedly, not an immediate or full solution, but have you tried C1 DSLR? Unfortunately, support for the E-1 is still a month or so away and it won’t do your borders and copyright statement, but it will process a whole load of RAW images with default settings.

    But where it realy shines is when you realise default settings, well, suck. You need to set at least white balance, highlight and shadow points and probably give your images a friendly name.

    I don’t think anything beats C1 for running through a couple of hundred images, selecting the keepers and doing a quick white balance and levels adjust.

    This is what I do, after which I batch run the resulting JPEGs through Tcl and ImageMagick to create the small sizes and web pages.

    A bit more work than everything on auto, but your batch should be doable on a Sunday afternoon and the quality is worth it.

  6. What’s wrong with your 10-year-old Perl script and ImageMagick? 🙂

  7. Philip: What’s wrong with ImageMagick? It doesn’t understand Olympus RAW Format as far as I know. And I don’t think it does as good a job making JPEGs as PhotoShop somehow.

    Bas: Thanks for your suggestion to use C1 DSLR but a program that doesn’t do borders and copyright statements doesn’t sound very useful to someone who wants borders and copyright statements. The software that came with the E1 does batch conversion of RAW to JPEG.

  8. It’s been my experience that batch processing in Photoshop (at least as of the old version that I’m using, 5.5) is pretty painful; it’s based on a “recording user action” type model. Trying to do anything other than playback a set series of actions didn’t seem possible last time I took a look.

    So I’d probably create an “action” to batch convert the .RAW files, then sic your perl script on them. Or, see if http://www.cybercom.net/~dcoffin/dcraw/ works for you. All of this processing is worlds easier if the camera supports recording horizontal or vertical orientation recording in the image as I’m sure you know (it’s saved me tons of time).

  10. Far from me to behave like your typical Linux zealot (I already went through that phase years ago, thankfully), but there’s always GIMP (aka the Free version of Photoshop). It has a fully-fledged scripting host… and guess what, it supports Scheme as a scripting language. See an example:

    http://www.gimp.org/docs/scheme_plugin/scheme-sample.html

    Of course, the drawback is that instead of building on the knowledge that you already have (of Photoshop and ImageMagick), you need to learn a new program from scratch. Also, I don’t think it supports RAW, but Phil says that he already has a program that can do batch RAW->JPEG, so maybe that’s not a problem.

  11. PaulJ: You don’t get the best quality if you go RAW->JPEG->JPEG. That’s why an application that understands the RAW format and can do everything in its in-memory representation of the image is key. Basically you don’t want to sharpen and JPEG until the very end of the image processing pipeline. In theory you could produce a bunch of intermediate TIFF files but they’d be huge…

  12. Try Imatch Management (trial version downloadable at http://www.photools.com) which aside from being a robust image management tool has a pretty nifty set of image manipulation features including adding copyrights and borders of different widths, colors, etc and auto web gallery development. Fazil Majid (http://www.majid.info/mylos/stories/2002/06/29/imageCategoryManagementWithImatch.html) seems to like Imatch a lot.

    (No affliation, just a happy user of Imatch)

  13. If you have a 120 Gb disk for the conversion:

    Step 1: Batch Convert RAW to TIFF (using whatever)
    Step 2: Add borders/(c), resize using good old perl/imagemagic (keep in tiff format)
    Step 3: Using photoshop batch convert TIFFs to JPG

    The advantage of this is that you will not be doing massive clicking/recording in PS Gui and you can get a good night sleep between steps 🙂

  14. Philip:

    Take Imatch out for a trial run (www.photools.com) Aside from being a robust image management application, it has some useful image manipulation features, many geared towards professional photographers.

    It can resize JPEGs, add borders of different colors, widths and even assorted masks, and add a copyright watermark. It does web galleries as well through its scripting environment (Sax? I don’t know it, but don’t really use it.)

    I don’t know if it has Pentax RAW support, but it’s a strong possibility. It definitely has Canon and Nikon RAW support built in.

    I use it and recommend it, but it’s not freeware nor open source.

  16. I know C hacking isn’t your favourite, but you could use DC RAW to add RAW support to ImageMagick, I am sure the world will be a better place for it!

  17. Photoshop CS has extended scripting capabilities with Javascript, Applescript and VBScript supported (not just VB as mentioned above) – no more laborious macro recording. As someone who just about gave up on scripting Photoshop the CS release is a breath of fresh air.

    There’s a useful scripting reference with examples included (in your Photoshop CS/Scripting Guide folder) – you should be able to knock up your required script just cutting and pasting from the examples.

    Cheers,
    David

  19. It’s best to run separate PS scripts for the various JPEG sizes. Note that you can use the Automate->Fit_Image… command within a script, to manage both vertical and horizontal images. Make the colored border by setting the background color and increasing the canvas size (use “relative”). For the copyright notice, rotate the image 180 degrees, then add text in the UPPER LEFT — then rotate the text layer 180 degrees (relative to its own center), and finally rotate the entire image back 180 degrees. Text is now in the lower right, whatever pixel address that may be.

  20. Let me just say how excited I am to see these pictures!!! Philip, your pictures are the best and I thoroughly enjoy enjoying them.

  21. I do exactly what you described – border plus copyright statement plus multiple sizes – all with Photoshop Actions run on a batch of 100s or 1000s of files. Actions are *really* easy to set up – I assume you already know how, or I can send you my PS action file that you can edit with your b/g color and font and text preferences. It will take all of 10 minutes to install on your CS and start crunching through.

    One other great thing you absolutely *must* do with CS is to tag every image’s EXIF/IPTC with relevant keywords. You can do 1000s at one shot. (I know you have expressed some frustration at your photo.net search engine not being able to find your images because you named them more briefly that you would have liked. Like your example of ‘watefalls’ not finding an image of a waterfall in King’s Canyon). Someday soon I bet XP and Google’s image searches will become EXIF/IPTC savvy and be able to find your phtographs when poeple type keywords like Ecudador/Peru/South America/Olympus/E1/Amazon/Airplane Shots etc etc.

    A long time admirer of your writings,

    Raghu

  22. Spellos. Please read
    “phtographs when poeple” as “photographs when people”.
    “Ecudador” is of course “Ecuador”

  23. ImageMagick doesn’t understand RAW files, but dcraw does, and will happily convert them to 16 bit per channel PPM files which ImageMagick makes short work of.

  25. Feature Tour

    Image Editing: DeBabelizer provides a wide array of image editing tools, any of which can be included in a script for batch processing.
    Media Optimization: DeBabelizer’s optimization tools provide full palette control and image optimization for single and multi-frame images for individual images or batches.
    File Conversion: DeBabelizer provides readers and writers for over 100 different file formats including many hard to find legacy formats.
    Automated Workflow: Take advantage of DeBabelizer’s advanced automation features, including batch automation, drag and drop scripting, Hot Folders and Action Arrows.

  26. you can script almost anything in photoshop with javascript and applescript. its tedious, but once its done its done. i used to have a script like this somewhere that i made for some buddies in the pr0n industry, i’ll see if i can find it.

  30. First, as a Phillip.greenspun.com & Arsdigita.com lurker for many years, I’m surprised to see you moving away from your ImageMagick scripts that have gotten you this far.

    I echo David Burrows’ post.

    I’ve had good luck controlling Photoshop with both C# (for the GUI) and Python (for the simplicity). Both C# & Python control Photoshop through the ye olde COM interface. And since its COM then its possible to control Photoshop from Perl.

    Let me know if you’re interested in trying out Photoshop scripting with an external language. It’s very straightforward & fun!

    Rob Chohan
    RobChohan@yahoo.com

  32. Philip, did you ever manage to get a good idea from these comments? If so, have you put together the photos yet and made them available?
    Cheers, Stephen

  33. Phil and everyone else,

    I hope it is not too late, but I think XNView does what you want to do. Well I have used a couple of free softwares, one Irfanview, this works pretty well, small and easy to use. The second one, called XNView (http://www.xnview.com/) developed by Pierre-Emmanuel Gougelet. This is an OPEN SOURCE software, so I image this may catch the attention of Phil and maybe ADD some features to the software in the near future.
    This software works very nice:

    “XnView, a software to view and convert graphic files, really simple to use ! Support of more than 400 graphics formats ! It’s free, so do not hesitate !

    XnView (1.70.4/1.50) exists for Windows, MacOS X, Linux x86, Linux ppc, FreeBSD x86, OpenBSD x86, NetBSD x86, Solaris sparc, Solaris x86, Irix mips, HP-UX, AIX ”

    So as you can see, it does give you lots of options for people with access to expensive systems or the ones that go the road of open source.

    With this software you can NAME, ADD TEXT, and CONVERT BATCH of files. The only routine that is not included in the software is to ADD THE BLACK FRAME to the images. What I would like to have is a feedback from other users. I would be interested to know if they are happy with the results of the images after converting raw files to jpgs.

    Good luck and I am very curious to see the pics from Ecuador-Gal

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