ISO: PS Action - Turning a layout into a template

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ISO: PS Action - Turning a layout into a template

I know I have seen this action some where, but now that I need it I can't find it! It was an action that you could run on a layered layout that would turn each piece into a template piece.

I have googled and looked in all the shops I could think of, and haven't been able to find it. If you know where I could find one, I would appreciate it so much!

Thank you for your help! No, unfortunately that isn't what it is. The one I need will take any flower, paper, ribbon etc and replace it with the gray scale blocky template style component. So I could take a regular layout that I was about to save and post in a gallery, and instead run this action (while it was still in layered form) and it would turn it into a basic template.

I don't remember seeing anything like this but it would be an awesome action to have... would save tons of time since that's what I do (more or less) manually with my favorite high count photo layouts. smiley Hope someone knows what you're talking about!!!

This one? Wendyzine has a bundle for the template action and a PNG exporter. The second link is just the template action.

http://shop.scrapbookgraphics.com/BUNDLE-Template-Converter-and-Export-Template-PNGs.html
http://shop.scrapbookgraphics.com/ACTION-Template-Converter.html

DUDE!!! Now that is totally RAD!!! I wonder if it ever goes on sale??? Umm I'll definietly have to add this to my pinterest page and watch it. LoL

MELOUISE!!!! You are my life saver!! This is the exact one I was looking for and I just flat out couldn't find it!!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!! If I could give you a hug, I would! Oh, and I'm buying this right this second.

smiley glad to be of help! Let us know how it works, okay? I'm kind of curious myself...

That is awesome! And it IS on sale today! smiley $14.25 smiley

Photoshop CS.. I think its 4 and above? Don't quote me on that. Anywho it comes WITH a script to save as individual png's now. So really you only need the $10 which is also on sale! (If you use Photoshop CS that is smiley )

OK...I got it...I'm not all that thrilled with it.

  1. You have to provide your own set of shapes to swap out with (though she sells her own set and does provide a small, bonus set you can use).

  2. You have to run a separate action on each layer (i.e., photo has it's own action that makes it a white box, elements have their own action that you have to open your own shapes for, etc.).

  3. I found it confusing to install and the instructions not useful (though I did contact her directly and she was quick to respond and assist).

For me, it just seems just a tiny bit of a time-saver, compared to me making my own template manually from my layouts, which is what I have been doing. But that's just my opinion and I've only had it a day, so maybe it will improve in time/with use.

From the product description:

Quote:
Tested in PSCS1-5, PSE5-8. Mac & PC, English only.

ummmm... thanks so much for the review Tina!!! At $10 for the version I could use... I guess I'd expect it to do it for me. LoL and then the need to buy the extras to make it totally work... oh well, I'm sure it's still great for designers who would use it tons compared to me.

Huh, I'm glad for the review as well, Tina. I've been backtracking through some of my designs and creating templates, and while the idea of this is pretty neat, having to do it layer by layer sounds slower than what I'm doing. o.o

When I first read this post, I thought that would be an awesome action to have, but after reading the review, I'm not so sure. I'm still learning how to do a lot of things in PS, and I don't really do any designing, although I would love to learn. I guess there is never going to be a "magic click" where you just make a couple of clicks and everything you want to do will be done automatically. LOL

Okay, I have been thinking about this, and trying to figure out how it can be done. I don't know about earlier versions of PS, but in CSPS6 there is a way to change all the layers to greyscale, using File>Automate>Conditional Mode Change. When that window comes up, select, the target as Greyscale. When I tried this, I got a warning that changing modes can affect the appearnace of layers, and to Merge layers before continuing. I selected Don't Merge, and then got a message saying "Discard color information? To control the conversion use Image >Adjustments>Black & White. I selected Discard, then it went through all my layers and got rid of all the color information.

When that is done, select File>Scripts>Export Layers to Files. Select the folder you want everything saved into, create a file name prefix if you want one, and the file type. Then hit Run. It will go through your layout and save everything to their own file. If all your layers are named, it will name the file according to the File Name Prefix and the layer name.

I found that if you save as a PSD, it will save the entire image, even if it is "hanging" off the page. If you save as PNG, it will cut the image where it hangs off the page, so that is something to remember when you are doing this, if you want the entire image saved and not cut off.

I was able to test this in CSPS5 and it has the same scripts, although I don't know if it will work in anything earlier. It is a two step process, but that is faster than trying to do it for each layer.

I would expect that if you know how to create scripts , you could do both steps while recording a script, and just run the one... but not sure if you can change the folder destination, or the file prefix that way.

Thanks for asking the question, as I just learned something new with Photoshop trying to figure this out, and don't have to pay someone else for a script to do this.

After more thinking and testing on this, you can create your own action to do this very easily. I usually have to record an action more than once because I always forget a step or two.. smiley I don't know how to save an action and share it, as I thought I read some where that if you move an action to a different computer, you need to record it again.
However, if you want to create your own action, here are the steps I used.
Open your Actions Panel and click on the New Action icon (next to the trash can).
Name your action what ever you want, and select a set (I used default because I don't know how to create another set).
Then click record. Here is where you don't want to do any clicking of anything that isn't what you want to record or it will be in your action. (Although you can delete it later).
Click on File>Automate>Conditional Mode Change, and select your target mode, in this case Greyscale.
After that completes, go to Select>Select All Layers.
Image>Reveal All ( not sure this step is really necessary, but this way I know all my elements that may be hanging off the edge will be fully viewable).
If you haven't already clicked on your move tool, you can do that now, so it will show you the icons for aligning.
You want to click on the icons for aligning horizontally and vertically. This brings everything in to the middle of your canvas.
Then go to File>Scripts>Export Layers to Files. Select PNG and check the box for trim and transparency. Select the folder you want to save your files to, and the File Name Prefix. Then click on RUN.

When it has finished saving all your layers, you want to remember to click on the stop button, so it will stop recording.

You now have an action that will turn your layout into individual template files.
One of the problems that I have heard about Actions, you can't change the folder you are saving to when you run the action again. So you may want to create a folder that all your layers save into, and then move them to another folder later, but keep that folder on your computer so the next time you run the action, it can save into the same folder.

You can also leave out the File Name Prefix, just leave that blank, if you don't want to add something to all your files. However, if you add something to your files, such as your name that would be the place to put it so it is there automatically.
I'm no expert on Photoshop, but I hope this helps someone. If nothing else, it helped me learn a bit more about the program. smiley

WOW Diane!!! Can't wait to try it out myself on one of my layouts... Thank you so much for taking the time to see how it worked out for you and sharing your knowledge and experience with us. And thanks for typing that all out so detailed!!! It's greatly appreciated. smiley

Your welcome Shawana, I would love to hear how it worked for you. I'm not an expert by any means, but I just have a tendency to try to figure something out when I want to learn it, (IF I have the time to spend on it). Since I'm not a designer, I don't know if I would ever use this particular action, but I did learn how to create them so if there is something I do a lot, I know how to create my own action now. smiley

I'm not sure all the steps I took are necessary, like the moving of all the elements to the center, if saving them is going to trim the canvas around them anyway, but since I was just playing around trying to see how it worked, that is what I did. At the time I was doing this, I didn't have time to try it with out moving them all to the center of the canvas, so I may try it again with out that step to see if it works, or if you even need to "reveal all" before you do any of it, if it is going to trim around elements that are hanging off the page.

I'm not a designer either... I just love to scrapbook and try to learn to get around in PS too and save time in my own scrapping. I'm a bit of a slow-poke. smiley -- I also feel a little lost again since upgrading to 5 a few months back and I think I'm now two versions behind the latest again or will be soon with their new release. LOL

Shawna, PS5 is two version back, and I have PS6, not going to upgrade to the "CLOUD" version. The way I look at it, if a version of software does what I need it to do, and works on my computer, I don't need to spend the money to upgrade every time the software maker decides to come out with a newer version. I will update the software if they have bug fixes, but won't always upgrade if what I have is working for me.

I'm thinking about switching to PaintShopPro, since it is a lot cheaper than PS, before I upgrade PS again... I think they have a free trial version, so I may download that and see if it does everything I want/need before I upgrade Photoshop again.

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I found that if you save as a PSD, it will save the entire image, even if it is "hanging" off the page.

If you don´t want the hanging parts of things appearing (when QCin templates they shouldn´t - it´s one of the things that is checked...), go to the crop tool, select all the image (make sure there isn´t any tiny place not selected) and press enter. Then, check the image size to make sure you really cropped it well..

Wow, Diane, that is one extensive how-to you made us! I am definitely saving this to my 'to do' list, once I finally get around to making templates smiley Thanks for sharing!

Not sure if this is helpful or not, but Marisa has a great tutorial/idea/suggestion HERE!