Batch Processing Actions in Photoshop

Photoshop’s Batch feature lets you apply an action to a group of files. Suppose you want to make changes to a series of files. You could open each file in Photoshop, play the desired macro, and then save the file. But that might take a few minutes, or much longer if you have a lot of files to process. If you want to keep your original file, too, you have to remember to save each file in a new folder. Batch processing can automate tedious chores like this for you.

To check out this useful tool, copy some files (at least five or six) to a new folder and follow these steps:

1. Make sure that all the files are in a single folder of their own.
Photoshop by default works on all the files in a folder. You have to use the File Browser if you want to choose only some of them using the Batch feature.

2. Choose File➪Automate➪Batch.

3. From the Set pop-up menu, choose the set that contains the action you want to apply.
If you have only one set of Actions loaded, it appears by default.

4. Choose the action you want to apply from the Action pop-up menu.

5. From the Source pop-up menu, choose Folder.
You can also select Opened Files to process files you already opened in Photoshop; Import to process a series of files captured with your scanner or transferred from your digital camera; or File Browser to process files you selected in the File Browser. File Browser is a good method for processing files that do not appear in the same folder.

6. Click the Choose button, navigate to the folder you want to use, and click OK (in Windows) or Choose (in Mac OS).

7. Select other options in the Source area, as desired. Here’s a description of your choices:

-->Override Action “Open” Commands: Normally, Photoshop automatically opens each of the files in the selected folder and processes them, so your action doesn’t need to contain an Open command. However, if the macro does contain an Open command, you’ll want to select this option to tell Photoshop to substitute files in the selected folder rather than those that might be specified in your action’s own Open command.

Don’t select the Override Action “Open” Commands option if you do want Photoshop to use files specified by the action. For example, your action might open a file and copy its contents to the file being batch processed. In that case, you would not want to override the macro’s Open commands.

-->Include All Subfolders: Select this option to process files in subfolders within the folder specified.

-->Suppress File Open Options Dialogs: Select this option to have Photoshop disregard any options that could be possibly selected upon opening a file. Suppress File Open Options Dialogs is a new option in Photoshop CS.

-->Suppress Color Profile Warnings: When Photoshop opens a file that contains its own color profile, it asks whether you want to use that profile or Photoshop’s default profile. Selecting this check box suppresses that choice; Photoshop always uses its own default color profile.

8. In the Destination area, tell Photoshop what to do with each file after it is processed with the macro.
Choose one of the following options from the drop-down list:
-->None: Leaves the file open on your Photoshop desktop without saving it (unless the action itself contains a Save command).

-->Save and Close: Closes the files in the same folder where Photoshop found them. Your original file is overwritten, so use this option only when you don’t want to save the original or have another copy.

-->Folder: Saves the document in a folder.

9. If you chose Folder in Step 8, click the Choose button and navigate to a destination folder for your files.

10. Select the Override Action “Save As” Commands check box to ignore any Save As parameters in the action and use the filenames of the files as specified in the File Naming section described in Step 11.

11. In the File Naming section, specify how you want Photoshop to create the filenames for the new, processed files by choosing from the pop-up menus.
You can choose options from six popup menus, depending on how long and complicated you want the filenames to be. Here are a few suggestions:

-->You’ll usually want to choose Document Name from the first popup menu. If you do that, Photoshop retains the document name of the original file. If your documents are named Sunset.tif, Sunrise.tif, and Winter.tif, for example, the processed versions are given exactly the same names.

There are other choices in the popup menus, such as consecutive serial numbers or mm/dd/yy choices, which you can apply if you want. The serial numbers choices create consecutive numbers, either 1-, 2-, 3-, or 4-digit numbers, as well as serial letters, such as a, b, c or A, B, C, for each file created.

-->You’ll usually stick with the file’s extension in the second pop-up menu. Choose extension to apply a lowercase version of the file’s original extension, or EXTENSION to apply an uppercase version.

-->Use the four additional pop-up menus if you want to create longer and more complicated filenames.
For example, if you choose Document Name in the first pop-up menu, 4 Digit Serial Number in the second pop-up menu, ddmmyy in the third pop-up menu, and extension in the fourth pop-up menu (as shown in Figure 6-6), the Sunset.tif, Sunrise.tif, and Winter.tif files are renamed Sunset0001120302.tif, Sunrise0002120302.tif, and Winter0003120302.tif if they’re saved on December 3, 2002.

When processing large numbers of files, these naming tools can help you keep track of when and how the files were created.

12. Select the Windows, Mac OS, or Unix check box to specify what operating system you want the saved filenames to be most compatible with.

13. From the Errors pop-up menu, choose whether you want Photoshop to stop processing a batch when it encounters an error or whether you want it to simply continue and list the errors in a file. If you choose the latter option, click the Save As button to specify a log file and location for the log.

If you want to apply several different actions to a single set of files, or to apply the same action to multiple folders of files, just create an action that includes multiple batch-processing directives. To process multiple folders, you can also deposit shortcuts (in Windows) or aliases (in Mac OS) to each of the additional folders in the main source folder, and then select the Include All Subfolders check box in the Source area.

14. When you’re done selecting options in the dialog box, click OK to start the batch processing.