Photoshop® CS4 For Dummies®

Chapter 16. Streamlining Your Work in Photoshop

In This Chapter

• Working with Actions and the Batch command

• Scripting in Photoshop

• Automating your work in Bridge

• Generating multi-page PDFs and presentations

• Generating Web galleries through Bridge

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 begin the chapter with a look at Photoshop's Actions and the Batch command, which enable you to process many files automatically. Next, I give you 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. After that, I introduce automation through Bridge's Tools menu and show you the powerful Output panel. Bridge also enables you to generate PDF presentations, multi-page PDFs (including contact sheets and picture packages), and even Web galleries of your images.

Ready, Set, Action!

In Photoshop, an Action is simply a recorded series of steps ...