Photoshop Droplets
Here’s a little recipe for making Adobe Photoshop droplets…
A droplet is program that performs a series of operations on a group of files, which is a very useful thing to be able to do.
For instance, I had a collection of still images that I’d exported from our Red Machine editing timeline, and I needed to resize every single one of them, something that would take a very long time if I were to try and change each image individually.
(The problem with the images was that computer monitors have square pixels, while most video formats have rectangular pixels, which means that frame grabs from a timeline will appear distorted when displayed on a computer monitor — in the case of our camera, the Panasonic HVX200, the images appear to be taller and skinnier than they should, and the simplest way for us to restore normal proportions was to resize each image from 960×720 to 1280×720.)
Making a droplet is actually a two-step process: first, you create an action, which is a recording of a set of operations that can be applied to any images within Photoshop. Second, you turn the action into the droplet. The droplet means that you can apply your action to a whole folder of files without having to actually open the files yourself.
Here’s the workflow I used:
1) Open the first image in the folder of images you want to batch-change.
2) To get ready, you may need to do a little prep work. In my case, I knew that I would want to change only the width of my images, so I opened up the Image Size dialog box (Image>Image Size…) and unchecked the Constrain Proportions box. (If the box is checked, then any change made to one dimension is automatically applied to the other, so that the overall shape of the image is maintained — exactly what I didn’t want!)
I also created a new folder to hold my resized images.
3) When you’re ready to make the action, open up the Actions palette (Window>Actions). Create a new action by clicking the New Action button at the bottom of the palette (it’s the icon that looks like a piece of paper with a folded edge, next to the trash can). The New Action dialog box will open, giving you the option to name the new action; I called mine “ResizeDVCPROHD.” Click the Record button.
4) You should see that the red Record dot at the bottom of the Action palette is now illuminated. From this point onward, every keystroke you make will be recorded. Do the whole series of operations that you want to apply to each of your images.
My series of keystrokes were:
• From the menu bar at the top of the screen, choose Image>Image Size…
• The Image Size dialog box will open. Change Width from 960 to 1280. (No change to the height.) Click OK.
• From the menu bar, choose File>Save as…
• Keep the file name the same, but save into the new folder you made earlier.
• Command-W to close the file.
When you’ve finished with all the keystrokes, click the square Stop button at the bottom of the Actions palette to end recording.
I did a quick test on another image to make sure that the ResizeDVCPROHD action worked.
Once you confirm that your action is working, you’re ready to make the droplet, which will allow you to apply the action to a whole folder of images.
Go to File>Automate>Create Droplet…
This ppens a new dialog box. By default, the action will be set to the last action you created. Keep that, and make sure that no other boxes are checked. You can choose where you want to store the new droplet; for convenience, I put it onto my Desktop.
That’s it! Now all you have to do is drop any folder of images onto the droplet, and it will automatically execute the entire action on all the files in that folder.
