batch - photo frame

[arief kartamihardja]

helowww photoshop gurus!

my problem is probably nothing for all of you but I have been scratching my head to find the solution ... can I ask for your help?

i have about 90 pictures that I would like to add photo frame (such as sloppy border) on each of them. This means there are 2 different files involved, the pictures and the photo frame). I have tried to build the batch technique from http://www.rogercavanagh.com/actions/10_batch_action.htm
and you know, I'm not successful.

The problem that i have is ...
1. When I checked the "Override Action Open Commands" box, the action stop because the photo frame that I want to add is not in the same folder.
2. When I uncheck "Override Action Open Commands", instead of adding the frame to all images in the source folder, the action was keep using the same image when I recorded the action. I trashed that image I used to create the action and the batch stopped. hmmm what did I do wrong?

Can anyone help me? I must have missed few steps in between. Thank you all photoshop gurus!

[markzebra]

You need to remember to browse to your folders in the batch dialog - where it says "choose…"

This means that you need to set up 2 new folders – one with all the source files in it, and another empty folder to put all the resuling images inside. Both need to be specified by clicking on the "choose" button in the Batch dialog box.

"Overide action open commands" and "overide action save commands" both need to be checked.

It will ignore your original Open and Save in the Action that you have called "batch"- but you still need to make them.—*although to be honest I've never worked out why this seems to be the case.

[arief kartamihardja]

thank you for helping me markzebra ;}

I'm still stuck. When I "Overide action open commands" button is checked, the action stop because it couldn't locate the photo frame to open it. The photo frame is a psd file located in a different folder.
If I uncheck the "Overide action open commands" button, it will locate the photo frame file BUT the it's only applied to the same file I used to record the action. The batch process indeed opened every single file on the source folder but do nothing on each image.
First they open up the image then it opened the same image I used to record the action and keep doing the same thing over and over again without affecting the rest of the files.

I made a new source and destination folder ... and still did not resolve it ... isn't it weird?

Should I somehow make my photo frame as part of "Style"? But how can I integrate the photo frame to Photoshop? Thank you so much for taking time reading my troubles.

[AsMaT]

hmm...halo mas arif...kayanya ini problem yang lumayan ribet yah...pertanyan saya, apakah image ( yang akan di-frame) juga psd? This is purely lucky guess I think..Dalam default action anda bisa melihat wood frame action...mungkin sequence-nya bisa digunakan

[markzebra]

8(

Sorry for taking a while to respond there Arief.

There are various ways to do what you want, probably too many to mention here.

Now I see that you were trying to open the "frame" file every time! This actually not necessary. You can keep the file open and just "select previous document", copy your frame, and then "select next document" –*paste. Just clicking on the document while recording the action will automatically do this. Remember if your going to do it this way to close the document you are altering at the end of the action, so that theres no confusion about what "next and "previous" is. I can see you've done this already.}$

There are other ways too. You don't even have to have anything open, you can hold the frame in the clipboard throughout actually.

You can also save layer styles and apply these.

[arief kartamihardja]

kewl! :) thank you Nessie and Asmat for replying back!
I took Sunday and Monday off to take a break and so excited to see 2 new postings ;} yeeeeaaa! this is great!

yup Nessie, now it is make sense of how this thing should work. I just tested and it is working. I just have to make sure the frame file left open even after I finished recording the action. kewl! thank you :} thank you :}) thank you :)))

one last question ... how would you save the frame so it could be saved as part of the style options (window>styles)? or part of Extensis PhotoFrame library? Does this ring any bell?

cheers!
arief-

[markzebra]

Thats going to be difficult for me to answer because I don't know what your frame looks like but …

You don't need any plug-ins theres plenty in Photoshop now to create all that old Extensis stuff.

Like I said you can also just copy your frame into the clipboard edit/copy (control C) and then close your frame document at the start, before you run the action. Every time your action pastes it will use this data until its cleared.

[AsMaT]

whoopsie Mr. K..mind me asking this..are you Indonesian? coz..I'm alone here :*