Photo Tips – Basic Photoshop Processing Automations
Written by Mike Cheliak on March 27, 2009 – 7:41 am -Anyone who has had the pleasure of “cleaning” photos to make them ready for print knows how tedious the task can be. Applying a preset level to adjust the histogram, auto contrast, unsharp mask, cropping…the list goes on. The simple fact is that Photoshop is an amazing tool with high 
end capabilities that can transform almost any photo into true art. It also has a great deal to offer at a much lower level.
Automations are programmed sets of movements in Photoshop that you record as an action. I myself have a couple hundred actions programmed. They perform a variety of functions from basic levels to automating photo packages. I can take a photo, click on my automation and end up with a set of trading cards, a sports magazine cover, a couple 5×7’s and a team photo. While there is some user intervention for things like file naming and text completion; most of what is done is a programmed action that requires very few key strokes by the user.
Take for instance this scenario. You are photographing a companies employees for ID cards. There are 200 employees. You need to photograph them and process the head shots to fit an ID card badge that the company will produce. In order to make this easy on yourself, you need to pre-plan your shoot. Make sure you have good White Balance and good exposure. Any incident meter is a tool you should always use. There is also an amazing tool called Color Right. You can visit them online at www.colorright.com. This tool will end your frustration with white balance settings for good!
Now that you know your photos are going to be fairly close to perfect in exposure and white balance, you need to set your shooting area. By this, I mean you have to ensure that every subject is seated correctly and that they fill the frame composition the same for every shot. This will make it a lot easier on you when it comes time to setting your cropping automation. Always take at least two shots per every subject. I tend to take a shot, drop one stop (aperture) and then take another shot, go up a couple stops (one higher than you started) and take a third shot. This will give you a good bracket to choose from.
OK, now you have 600 photos. You load them on your hard drive and now what? First is to view all the photos and choose the best shot for each person. When you browse your photos in Adobe Bridge you can select a “label”. Right click the photo, select Label >>Select from the menu. The photo will now have a colored bar under it. Once you have all the photos selected that you are going to use, you need to sort them in Bridge. Select View >>Sort>>”By Label in the menu.
Now comes the first automation. A basic clean/unsharp mask function. If your photos are pretty much dead on you should be able to set this automation to run without any intervention from you. Open one file, create a New set of actions called ID CARDS. Under this set, create an action called CLEAN. You are now recording.
1. From the Photoshop menu, select Image>>Adjustments>>Levels. When the Levels dialogue pops up, view the histogram and assess where you need to make any adjustments. You may need to drag down the highlight, up the midtone or drop the shadow. If you don’t need to do anything, I suggest hitting escape at this point. You will not have recorded this action unless it is completed.
2. Select Filter>>Sharpen>>Unsharp Mask from the Photoshop menu. I set mine as follows. Amount 120%, Radius 2.0 Pixels, Threshold 2.0 levels. This is a matter of preference and also a setting for the size of files I use. A smaller file may need less (100/1/1) is a common setting as well.
3. Your automation is complete and now you need to stop the action from recording and close the file you were working on WITHOUT saving it.
You now need to run your automation by selecting all of your “Labelled” files. In recent versions of Bridge and Photoshop, you can run an automation as a batch or in this case, we want to run it as “Image Processor”. This will take the selected files, run the automation and save a copy in a new folder thus leaving the original untouched. In Bridge, select Tools>>Photoshop>>Image Processor. In the popup select “Save in Same Location” (this will create a folder called JPEG in your source folder and save the files there). File type “Save as JPEG” and Quality “12″. Under Preferences you will check the Run Action and select the Action Set “ID CARDS” and the action “CLEAN”. You can also add your Copyright Info and check the “Include ICC Profile” box as well. Click Run and watch as 200 files get cleaned, copied and saved.
Your second automation will be to crop your photos to the correct size for the ID cards. For argument sake, let’s say you need the head shot to be 1″ x 1.25″ to fit the card. First you need to check all your processed files to make sure they all look good. Nothing will ever replace the photographer proofing their work…NEVER!
1. Open a file from the processed photos. Select your crop tool and set your size to 1 in Width and 1.25 in Height and a Resolution of 300 Pixels/Inch.
2. Create a new action under the ID CARD set and call it CROP. You are now recording. Crop your photo exactly as you want it to print and double click the cropped area.
3. Stop recording. Close the file WITHOUT saving.
You have now completed your cropping automation. Assuming you composed all the photos to fit the frame, you should be able to set and forget this automation as well. If not, there is a small Toggle box in your Automation Window (Left side). You can select this option to Toggle on and off a Dialogue Box. This will basically start the automation and hold it for you and allow you to adjust the cropping area. Once you finish, the automation will complete. The whole point however is to avoid this by proper composition when you are taking the photos.
To run this automation, you will go to Bridge, Select all your files and select Tools>>Photoshop>>Batch. In the Pop Up box, select your ID CARD set and the CROP action. Skip down to destination and select Save and Close from the Drop down menu. This will take the file, run the automation and save it in the same location. For your purpose, this is the best selection as you don’t need an additional redundant copy. Click OK and let the automation run.
While this is not the definitive guide to Photoshop Automation’s, it does show you how you can eliminate a lot of time processing by just creating a couple simple automation’s and planning accordingly.
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Mike C.
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