Using Adobe Photoshop CS, Part 2 - Exporting Layers
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The Export Layers to Files script is useful for when you want to create a separate file for each layer in your document. What's great about this script is that it can generate files in JPEG, Photoshop, TIFF, PDF, Targa, or BMP formats (see Figure 5.131).
Figure 5.131 Running the Export Layers to Files script.
Exporting Layer Comps
We discussed earlier how layer comps can assist in keeping tabs on multiple design ideas within a single Photoshop document. To extend that functionality even further, Photoshop includes three scripts specifically designed for the layer comps feature. You can automatically generate separate files for each of your comps, create a multiple-page PDF file that contains all of your designs, or create a Web photo gallery of your designs (which we'll discuss momentarily)-all with a single command.
Photomerge
Some cameras are designed to shoot photos in panoramic mode, giving you a very wide view of such things as a landscape or a stadium. There's also a technique of using a regular camera to shoot a panoramic view in multiple photographs, which you can then "stitch" together in Photoshop. Photomerge is an automatic feature that takes a range of specified files and attempts to create one single large file by analyzing the edges of each of the pictures and aligning them where they match. Photomerge actually does a very impressive job, and of course you can touch up the final file as necessary, using Photoshop's other retouching tools.
Choose File, Automate, Photomerge to get the Photomerge dialog. After you've chosen the source files (see Figure 5.132), click OK and watch as Photoshop does all the work (see Figure 5.133).
Figure 5.132 Specifying the source images to be merged.
Figure 5.133 The separate pictures (top) and the final merged image (bottom).
Crop and Straighten Photos
Scripts are cool, and watching scripts work right before your eyes is even cooler. One of the problems with scanning images on a flatbed scanner is that it's a pain to make sure that each photo is perfectly straight. It's also time-consuming to have to scan one picture at a time.
The Crop and Straighten Photos feature solves all of that by allowing you to cram several photos on your scanner at once and scan it as one large image. You also don't need to fret about whether the images are perfectly straight. Scan your photos and choose File, Automate, Crop and Straighten Photos (see Figure 5.134). Then watch as Photoshop magically detects each photo, rotates it perfectly, and then puts each one into its own file.
Figure 5.134 Choosing the Crop and Straighten Photos command.
Web Photo Gallery
So you've got a whole bunch of photos that you want to upload to the Web to show a client who is vacationing in some lovely remote village that just happens to have Internet access (if such a thing exists, I have yet to see it). The automation technique called Web Photo Gallery will create an HTML page for you with all the images you specify in the dialog (see Figure 5.135). You can choose from several styles of pages and even specify thumbnails and security options.
Figure 5.135 The Web Photo Gallery dialog.
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