batch processing?

Hi,

We are holding a conference of sorts, and we are making name tags for everyone to hang around their necks. We have a design in photoshop. We have an excel spreadsheet with everyone's name and forum. Traditionally, the name tags were juts copied and pasted by hand, which is tedious and prone to mistakes.

is there a faster way to do this? i heard something about scripts, but i have no idea where to start. does anyone have a pointer to where i can learn it? i only want to learn the bare minimum to write THIS script, as im sure it's the only script i'll ever write for photoshop.

any help to automate this name tag making process would be great. thanks.

I've never use this option myself, but there is a facility to import data sets into Photoshop and create version of an image based on the content of the data set.

Try searching the help file for Data Sets and see if that does what you want.

George Dingwall said:

I've never use this option myself, but there is a facility to import data sets into Photoshop and create version of an image based on the content of the data set.

Try searching the help file for Data Sets and see if that does what you want.

i found that on google, looks promising. thank you. but i would also like photoshop to SAVE each file as a .jpg how do i do that?

akimatsu123 said:

i found that on google, looks promising. thank you. but i would also like photoshop to SAVE each file as a .jpg how do i do that?

Not exactly sure what you are asking, but if you are talking about saving the individual layers you create using a data set as Jpeg files, then Photoshop comes with a script that allows you to export layers as files.

Look in File/Scripts for a script that is called something like, "Export Layers to Files". It may be slightly different depending on which version of Photoshop you are using.

George Dingwall said:

Not exactly sure what you are asking, but if you are talking about saving the individual layers you create using a data set as Jpeg files, then Photoshop comes with a script that allows you to export layers as files.

Look in File/Scripts for a script that is called something like, "Export Layers to Files". It may be slightly different depending on which version of Photoshop you are using.

hi, sorry maybe i wasn't clear enough. i don't want to save individual layers as a file. i want to apply each name and to save it as individual files.

akimatsu123 said:

hi, sorry maybe i wasn't clear enough. i don't want to save individual layers as a file. i want to apply each name and to save it as individual files.

What exactly is it that you want to save?

I'm afraid you have totally lost me.

Sorry.:confused:

George Dingwall said:

What exactly is it that you want to save?

I'm afraid you have totally lost me.

Sorry.:confused:

Okay. I have a .psd file that is a template for the name tags. I also have a .csv file for the names. I imported the .csv file as a data set. now i can use apply data set to substitute in values for the "names" variable.

i need to save each name tag as a .jpg. so basically i need to take each new name, apply data set, and save it as a .jpg file.

the problem is i have 800+ names. this would take forever if i tried to do this by hand. is there a faster method? thanks for your help

akimatsu123 said:

Okay. I have a .psd file that is a template for the name tags. I also have a .csv file for the names. I imported the .csv file as a data set. now i can use apply data set to substitute in values for the "names" variable.

i need to save each name tag as a .jpg. so basically i need to take each new name, apply data set, and save it as a .jpg file.

the problem is i have 800+ names. this would take forever if i tried to do this by hand. is there a faster method? thanks for your help

OK, so let me see if I've got this right.

You have a template into which you want to place an image of a person, along with that person's name from the data set. You then want to save that composite image as a jpeg.

If that is the case, then you should be able to record these steps in an action which you could then run using the Automate/Batch option.

Now I've never used the data set option before, so I don't know how this would work in an action.

The reason I was talking earlier about layers and how to export them as files, I seem to remember that I have used this method in an earlier version of Photoshop. What I did back then was to use Imageready to import a batch of images as layers. Imageready had an option for adding different text to each layer. It then allowed you to save off each individual layer as a separate file with your choice of formats.

I'm not sure if this method would work with your images and data set.

In any case, I regularly add text or logos to images using either actions or scripts, but as I don't normally use data sets to add text, I'm afraid you are on your own with that one.

Good luck