Photoshop® CS3 for Dummies®

Chapter 16. Streamlining Your Work in Photoshop

In This Chapter

• Taking advantage of Photoshop's built-in automation commands

• Working with Actions

• Using prerecorded scripts

A lot of the work that you do in Photoshop is fun — experimenting with filters, applying creative adjustments, cloning over former in-laws, that sort of thing. A bunch of your work, though, is likely to be repetitive, mundane, and even downright boring. That's where automation comes in. If a task isn't fun to do, if you need to speed things up, or if you need to ensure that the exact same steps are taken time after time, automation is for you.

I open the chapter with a look at some of Photoshop's major automation features — commands that help you quickly and easily create presentations, contact sheets, and even near-instant Web sites. Next, I show you a couple of production-oriented commands that let you print multiple images on a single sheet of paper (and that can save a bunch of money!). Next, you see how to play Photoshop's Actions and even record your own. The chapter wraps up with a quick look at scripts, such as the very powerful Image Processor. Scripts are sort of little computer programs that you use to control your computer — Photoshop, other programs, your printer, or even an operating system itself.

Running on Auto

Photoshop's File

Figure 16.1. The Automate commands can make quick work of big jobs.

Creating ...