How to automate Photoshop?

Question

I am trying to automate the process of scanning/cropping photos in Photoshop. I need to scan 3 photos at a time, then use Photoshop's Crop and Straighten Photos command, which creates 3 separate images. After that I'd like to save each of the newly created images as a PNG.

I looked at the JSX scripts and they seem to a lot of promise. Is what I described possible to automate in Photoshop using JavaScript or VBScript or whatever?

Answer 1

I actually got the answer on the Photoshop forums over at adobe. It turns out that Photoshop CS4 is totally scriptable via JavaScript, VBScript and comes with a really kick-ass Developer IDE, that has everything you'd expect (debugger, watch window, color coding and more). I was totally impressed.

Following is an extract for reference:

you can run the following script that will create a new folder off the existing one and batch split all the files naming them existingFileName#001.png and put them in the new folder (edited)

#target Photoshop
app.bringToFront;
var inFolder = Folder.selectDialog("Please select folder to process"); 
if(inFolder != null){
    var fileList = inFolder.getFiles(/\.(jpg|tif|psd|)$/i);
    var outfolder = new Folder(decodeURI(inFolder) + "/Edited");
    if (outfolder.exists == false) outfolder.create();
    for(var a = 0 ;a < fileList.length; a++){
    if(fileList[a] instanceof File){
        var doc= open(fileList[a]);
        doc.flatten();
        var docname = fileList[a].name.slice(0,-4);
        CropStraighten();
        doc.close(SaveOptions.DONOTSAVECHANGES); 
        var count = 1;
        while(app.documents.length){
            var saveFile = new File(decodeURI(outfolder) + "/" + docname +"#"+ zeroPad(count,3) + ".png");
            SavePNG(saveFile);
            activeDocument.close(SaveOptions.DONOTSAVECHANGES) ; 
            count++;
            }
        }
    }
};
function CropStraighten() {
    function cTID(s) { return app.charIDToTypeID(s); };
    function sTID(s) { return app.stringIDToTypeID(s); };
    executeAction( sTID('CropPhotosAuto0001'), undefined, DialogModes.NO );
};
function SavePNG(saveFile){
    pngSaveOptions = new PNGSaveOptions(); 
    pngSaveOptions.embedColorProfile = true; 
    pngSaveOptions.formatOptions = FormatOptions.STANDARDBASELINE; 
    pngSaveOptions.matte = MatteType.NONE; 
    pngSaveOptions.quality = 1; 
    pngSaveOptions.PNG8 = false; //24 bit PNG
    pngSaveOptions.transparency = true; 
    activeDocument.saveAs(saveFile, pngSaveOptions, true, Extension.LOWERCASE); 
}

function zeroPad(n, s) { 
    n = n.toString(); 
    while (n.length < s) n = '0' + n; 
    return n; 
};

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Answer 2

I just found this script just did the work for me! It automatically crop & straighten the photo and save each result to directory you specified.

http://www.tranberry.com/photoshop/photoshop_scripting/PS4GeeksOrlando/IntroScripts/cropAndStraightenBatch.jsx

Save it to local then run it in the PS=>File=>Command=>Browse

P.S I found in the comment it said the script can be executed directly by double clicking from Mac Finder or Windows Explorer.

Backup gist for the script here

Answer 3

Have you tried using Photoshop Actions? I don't now about the scanning part, but the rest can all be done by actions quite easily.