Photoshop® CS5 Bible

Chapter 31. Digital Workflow and Automation

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Batch processing image files

• Creating droplets to easily apply actions to files from the file system

• Using scripts to simplify workflow tasks

• Assigning actions and scripts to Photoshop events to automate tasks

Photoshop is a powerful application with many tools and utilities that provide limitless ways to create and edit images. Photoshop's power comes with one big drawback: It has so many tools, menu options, and panels that navigating through them can be difficult, especially if you need to perform the repetitive tasks on several files.

To solve that problem, Photoshop has provided several tools that make it possible to automate much of your workflow using batch processing and scripting. Batch processing involves performing the same set of commands on a set of files. Scripting involves applying a script as either a one-time command or each time a workflow event occurs. The following sections discuss utilizing Photoshop's automation and scripting tools to make things easier and speed up image editing.

Automating Workflow in Photoshop

One of the best ways to save time and increase your productivity when editing images is to automate some of the repetitive tasks. Often tasks such as lens correction and color correction need to be done on a series of photos.

For example, a set of photos taken with the same lens at a wedding dinner may all need a lens correction filter applied as well as a color correction to adjust for the lighting ...