Comments on: Using Photoshop Actions as Droplets in Lightroom

By: Jake

Jake — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 21:44:37 +0000

Hi Scott. Great post, thanks! I’m running into an issue with droplets, however, and I was wondering if you knew of a workaround. On some of my actions, I include “stops” in order to fine tune a particular setting or to mask out part of the effect I’m doing. When I try to do a batch run using a droplet (from LR to PS), I find that when a stop comes up and I choose to stop it (instead of continue), it shuts down the whole droplet. What are your thoughts? Do you know of a way that I can include the stops and not shutdown the droplet batch processing? Thanks in advance.

By: tommy

tommy — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 08:43:51 +0000

Over 10,000 action at
http://refont.com/photoshop-action/index.php

enjoy it!

By: Scott Rouse

Scott Rouse — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:17:08 +0000

Thanks for your thoughtful response, Paul. That is great information to have…and something I didn’t consider.

-Scott Rouse

By: Paul A

Paul A — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:00:46 +0000

One important thing to note when exporting a large group of images via a droplet are the limits imposed by the Windows command linen (not sure how OSx handles this). The way lightroom passes the selected images to the droplet in windows is to call the droplet (.exe file in windows environment)passing the file names as a long list on the back of that command. If there are a lot of files selected, and your export path is a long one to begin with, then the command line breaches the length limit imposed by the Windows OS and the droplet export fails. (For geeks – I am guessing that the limit of around 2048 characters is imposed by Lightroom’s use of the ShellExexute command, or 8192 imposed by cmd.exe). One way around this I use is a slightly convoluted method but it works every time:
Instead of setting up the export to call the droplet, I simply export to a pre-defined folder – say for example c:\exports. I then have a shortcut setup which calls the droplet file passing the name of this folder as a switch, so for example whatever_droplet.exe c:\exports.
This keeps the path short and it will process all files in that folder, saving them to whichever location/path is defined in your original action.

Another method I use which avoids droplets all together, is to do a Ctrl-S to save out sidecar files, then browse the export folder in Bridge, choosing the Image processor script from the photoshop menu – running through the required action from there. This way there is no intermediate file being exported from LR, as PS reads in the RAW files directly, using the sidecar for image settings, runs the action and saves as whatever format you choose in Image processor. All thanks to Dr Brown!

Cheers, Paul A

By: David

David — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 22:55:41 +0000

This bit of tech support might help Vista users who are having trouble with droplets.

” Using Droplets on Vista

To use Droplets on Vista, make sure that Photoshop and the Droplet exe are running at the same level of User Access Control. If Photoshop is elevated to run as administrator the droplet exe should be elevated as well. If Photoshop is not running elevated, the default configuration of a droplet will work as expected. ”

source:
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/401/kb401448.html#A8

By: David

David — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 05:02:26 +0000

Julieanne Kost, Adobe Evangelist and digital photography super star, recently recorded this wonderful tutorial on using actions and droplets to connect Photoshop and Lightroom.

By: David

David — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 20:38:04 +0000

Lindsay-
For your specific needs, putting the same logo on top of your photos, that droplets are one solution. The other solution that you might want to play with is the LR2/Mogrify export plug-in. You can see it in action here.

http://thelightroomlab.com/2009/08/the-lr2mogrify-plug-in-for-adobe-photoshop-lightroom/

David

By: Scott Rouse

Scott Rouse — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 18:38:26 +0000

Thanks, Lindsay. You’ll need a save/close command at the end of the droplet for it to work.

Think of it this way: Lightroom produces a file of whatever type/size you specify in the export dialog. It then sends that file to Photoshop and tells Photoshop to run the specified action on that photo. That’s it. At that point, it’s out of Lightroom’s hands. Your Photoshop action controls it from there.

Let me know if you have any more questions.

-Scott

By: Lindsay Docherty

Lindsay Docherty — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 20:32:47 +0000

Hi Scott!

I didn’t even realize this was yours until I got to the video. Thanks for taking the time to write this up but… I can’t get it to work for me. The action works well in photoshop but the file is saved through Lightroom as if I hadn’t even picked a droplet.

It’s a watermarking action that pulls a psd file from another folder onto a jpg, aligns it, flattens it, and then changes the resolution and size of the image.

Running the droplet from LR seems to ignore everything – no logo, no resolution or size change. I don’t have any save commands in place, is that the problem? I figured the LR export would naturally take care of that.

Any ideas?

By: Scott Rouse

Scott Rouse — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:54:13 +0000

Carlie,

You can record opacity changes to layers and the Fade command as part of an action in Photoshop. You’d record it with the action and then save that as a droplet. There’s no way to take a certain droplet and run it at 30% or something.

-Scott

By: Carlie Statsky

Carlie Statsky — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:21:42 +0000

Hey Scott,
Just wondering if I can create a droplet with an action at 30% strength, or does it have to be 100%? Please tell me I can!
Thanks for all your great information.
Carlie

By: Scott Rouse

Scott Rouse — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:25:31 +0000

Rush,

Thanks for your detailed comment on this issue. It’s been a frustrating one, for sure!

-Scott

By: rush

rush — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 11:51:16 +0000

Yes vista & windows7 have a problem where nothing works. I found this on adobe forum. The steps taken to resolve the problem were as follows:

1. Renaming the CS4 preferences folder to ‘.old’ – This is located at C:\Users\\Appdata\Roaming\Adobe\Photoshop CS4\Adobe Photoshop CS4 Settings. Apparently uninstalling and reinstalling PS does not affect this folder, so by renaming it, it forces PS to create a new one.

2. Turn off Vista User Account Control

3. Create a new user account (administrator level) & Restart

4. In the new user account, Open PS and create a new droplet to the desktop

5. Tested the new droplet by dropping an image onto it It now works.

6. Logged off (specifically told not to use switch user), and logged back on with normal account.

7. Created a new droplet in PS onto the desktop It now works when you drop an image onto it.

8. Turned Vista User Account Control back on, and retested OK.

According to Adobe these steps resolve quite a number of different issues with Vista and PS. He put it down to a permissions issue with Vista.

By: Kyle

Kyle — Fri, 22 May 2009 15:04:48 +0000

Thanks Scott. This was a great refresher tutorial. Is there a way to scale a watermark so that it’s the same proportion for both horizontal and vertical photos?

By: Wick

Wick — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 01:31:31 +0000

Thanks for this tip. Is there any way to set up either the action or the export filter in such a way that the file is saved back into the same folder and imported into the Lightroom catalog? I want to be able to simply run the process and have the image back in Lightroom with the action applied.