Help needed with using Patterns with Actions

[deadbunneh]

New to the site and I'm wondering if anyone could give me a little assistance!

I have jpegs of a LOT of fabric swatches that are to be inserted into a PSD file of a living room as the window blinds and this needs to be achieved via an Action.

The way they are intended to work is:
• the fabric swatch is opened
• a pattern is generated from the swatch
• a PSD file is opened
• the relevant layer is selected and a pattern overlay is chosen which makes the swatch appear as if it is used on the blinds

All well and good. BUT of course when I record the action and create the pattern from one swatch, whenever I run the action with a DIFFERENT swatch it still uses the swatch that was used when I recorded it!

For example I create the action with olive_swatch.jpeg and it works a charm. But when I open teal_swatch.jpeg it still chooses olive.swatch.jpeg when I apply the pattern to the layer.

Anyone got any ideas?

Dave

 

[colleague]

does the action starts with 'open olive swatch.jpg' then it will always use olive swatch
but if you open olive swatch .jpg first and then start recording the action , it should work with other swatches

 

[deadbunneh]

Hi,
Cheers for your reply. No the opening of that particular swatch isn't in the action. It's designed to be run as a batch or using a droplet on a folder full of swatches. But no matter which swatch the action is run on, it always uses the pattern created from the swatch that was used to create the action in the first place.

 

[deadbunneh]

Don't suppose anyone thinks this could be done with a script?

 

[MrToM]

Hi Dave,

When you say...

...the relevant layer is selected and a pattern overlay is chosen...

...do you want the action to stop for you to manually select which pattern to use?

Batch processes are image based, that is to say, the action is applied to a bunch of images, usually in a dedicated folder.
I'm not sure if you can automate which pattern is used without some manual intervention....but I may be wrong.

If you can live with manual input then can you not just turn on the dialog at the point of pattern selection?

I may be way off base here with understanding exactly how you expect the action to execute....I get what your ultimate goal is but as to what you expect the action to actually do isn't all that clear....to me anyway.

Are you trying to apply every pattern to every image......automatically?

Regards.
MrTom.

 

[deadbunneh]

Hi Tom,
Cheers for the message. Yes the intention is, I have a folder of around a thousand different swatches and a lifestyle image showing a room with a blank blind at the window.
With previous actions I've been able to just slot the swatch in a layer behind the room image - as the room had a blank space where the blind should be.

I'm having to do this one differently as the PSD files weren't created by me.

Since there's so many having a dialogue pop up to select a different pattern isn't really practical.

The action essentially needs to:
•open swatch.jpeg
• create pattern from jpeg
• open PSD file
• change layer style on specific layer to Pattern Overlay BASED on the last pattern created
• save as with file name of swatch in an output folder

If it's not possible I'm just going to have to amend the PSD files myself to allow the action to work as it used to!

Dave

 

[MrToM]

...I'm having to do this one differently as the PSD files weren't created by me...

Files? So there IS more than one then?
Then the easiest solution would be to prepare those PSD files to fit in with the action you already have and know works.

...With previous actions I've been able to just slot the swatch in a layer behind the room image - as the room had a blank space where the blind should be...

Is there any reason why you can't create the same layout with the PSD file(s) in question?

Might as well use what you already have.

Regards.
MrTom.

 

[colleague]

maybe after using the pattern at the end of the action
you have to delete the pattern as one of the last steps in your action
otherwhise you end with a lot of patterns with the same name

 

[deadbunneh]

Hi Tom,
There'll be several different PSD files that are to be used with the same group of swatches.

The PSD files have already been created with another designer (out of my hands alas) and they'd take quite a bit of work to amend to work with my method.