new image

badhrt · 02-03-2003, 04:27 AM

Looks like I need some help finding out if Photoshop can perform a task that was available in Paint Shop Pro.
I had scanned a lot of old family photos and rather than scan each picture by itself, I opted to group them and seperate them later in PSP. This was easily done by selecting, copying and pasting as a new image.
I have not been able to do this in Photoshop without first creating a new image window and then selecting and dragging the selection into the newly created window. This is a pain because I usually create a generic window of 4X6 and then have to crop it afterwords. Very time consuming by comparison with the ease of PSP. [confused]

Thanks for any guidance that may make this chore a little easier.

Tim

02-03-2003, 08:23 PM

That's what we have actions for

Geoff · 02-03-2003, 11:15 PM

you sure do know your stuff ERIK!

good answer [righton]

badhrt · 02-03-2003, 11:33 PM

Thanks Erik I'll try both methods and see which one I'm most comfortable with. [righton]
Gaussian I'm not sure that an action would work as the photos in question are from the 50's and 60's and are of verying sizes, some scans contained 6 pics others 4 etc. It was a case of positioning as many pictures as possible into a 81/2 X 11 scanning surface.
Can an action work with variables? [confused]

02-04-2003, 03:46 AM

Badhrt, if you use some imagination, then you can do some wonderful things with actions.

The action I created is called Save Selection.

First you have to make a selection with the rectangular marquee tool.
Then you press F5 under which I have the action recorded.

What does the action do?[list][*]copy the selection[*]duplicate the document[*]Select all[*]Clear selection[*]Trim[*]Save selection[*]Close duplicated document[/list:u]Feel free to modify the part that saves the document. You might want to choose "Save for Web..."

Note
It's also possible to record an action using copy/paste in combination with a Ctrl+N (new document) command, but in that case you will need to press an extra Enter when the New Document window appears.
You can't do it without the Enter, because the trick will not work.

badhrt · 02-04-2003, 06:27 AM

Thanks gauss I didn't realize just how versatile actions can be. To be honest i've found them to be a bit intimidating but it looks like i'm gonna have to get my feet wet sooner or later. I really appreciate you supplying me with an action to play with. [righton]

Tim

wbiss · 02-04-2003, 05:41 PM

Great "action" Gaussian! Thanks!

gymmie · 02-04-2003, 09:01 PM

<blush> Actions are things I forget about, and that's plain wrong...they can save lots of time. Thanks for this one, Gauss....I "cut up" images the same way, by selecting & saving to a new file. This will help.