Comments on: Photoshop Automation Inquiry

By: Chris Brandt

Chris Brandt — Sun, 04 Sep 2005 07:58:17 +0000

Any chance of getting a preview? I was about to purchase Stockholm… but I’d like to see the new set before making a decision… :)

By: Chris Adams

Chris Adams — Sun, 04 Sep 2005 05:39:21 +0000

I was thinking about what you were trying to say and the only thing I could figure is when you make the icons and have it in the PSD file have it sliced up into the 16×16 px., or how ever big it maybe. Then name the individual squares to the name they should be, So the person can open it up and change the background of the icon then ‘Save to Web’ and save Images only. (S)he will then have a set of icons seperated with matching backgrounds.
It will take a little bit off effort to do this, but it will get the job done, but if you work hard now it will be easier at the end, or when you are in the action.

By: Jeffrey Tranberry

Jeffrey Tranberry — Fri, 26 Aug 2005 22:29:53 +0000

Dan, you should be able to modify the export layers script that ships with PS to use Save For Web for the GIF export step you want. You’ll have to use PS’s ScriptingListener plug-in to generate the Save For Web step though. Another, although expensive, option would be to use Adobe Graphic Server.
I would use a color overlay style instead of the paint bucket tool as it’s less destructive and you can capture the style and/or additional visibility changes using Layer Comps (PS or IR) or Rollover States(IR).
You could then write a script to save out the comps to GIF.
Using Variables might also be an option for you. Image>Variables and File>Export Data Sets…

By: Dan Cederholm

Dan Cederholm — Fri, 26 Aug 2005 20:01:57 +0000

Kay and Chris -- Awesome. Either one of these seems to do almost exactly what I need. Thanks much! And also cool for anyone else that's looking to do something similar. I'm amazed by the simplicity of the code that's needed. Either one is really compact. Nice job.

By: Mukund

Mukund — Fri, 26 Aug 2005 15:48:18 +0000

Dan, On a sidenote, why not create these icons in the SVG format as other icon designers seem to do these days, using a program such as Inkscape? This way a web developer can edit colours freely, change the shape of the graphics, resize them conveniently, etc.

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 26 Aug 2005 14:29:54 +0000

Dan,
Why not just swap the palette of your GIF images based on the color the user requests. You can do this on the server side very simply without having to hassle with ImageMagick or Photoshop.
I whipped up a demo: The Simple Palette Swapper that allows you to recolor your favicon. Check it out.
Hope this helps and introduces the palette swapping technique.
Regards,
Chris

By: Kay Bærulfsen

Kay Bærulfsen — Fri, 26 Aug 2005 14:22:03 +0000

Hi Dan!
Intresting topic :) I played around with GD last night, but wasnt able to get any good result with tha alphablending, so I switched to ImageMagic insted. I made a little “demo” in perl. (works fine in ff and opera, but not in IE :/ (well, my stuff works, but IW wont show the transparent png-image correct)).
http://www.quai.no/im/?color=ffff00
If I could get IE’s “AlphaImageLoader” to work, it would be easy to make a web-app that generated previews of the icon-set on the fly (using javascript).
If you need a helping hand, I would be more than happy to help you. (I have already bought a icon set from you, and are just waiting for more ;)

By: tim

tim — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 22:33:44 +0000

@ scott:
this is marvellous !!! I’d love to hear how you came up with this idea and how you managed to get it working…
@ everybody:
a web app ? again ? is this a contagious disease ? ;-)
good luck dan

By: Scott Meinzer

Scott Meinzer — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 10:50:48 +0000

Like Jonic said, a php (or whatever) web app is probably the way to go.
Without much work at all it would be easy to let people pick any color they want and make the icons and then zip them up and send the person a download link (that should probably expire after so long).
The GD library included with php is actually really easy to work with.
For a fun side project I coded up: http://omnidot.com/pepsi/
Basically it takes zip codes and plots them on a map and outputs the map as a transparent png. The code that makes the map is 27 lines long. (with normal indenting and all)
If you need any help just email away.

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 00:38:15 +0000

Because ImageReady is stupid, I think you have to set your compression settings on a palet thats probably hidden and then do “Save Optimised as”.