Automation


Everyone likes to save time, and nothing could be more true when working with web graphics. The nature of optimized graphics for the Web usually results in many different images, each for different purposes. Having to manually work on each individual image can prove to be boring and nonproductive.

Luckily, the folks at Adobe have given plenty of power to ImageReady to do work on its own. Actions enable you to record a series of functions and then "play back" those functions whenever you want. These Actions can also be applied to an entire folder of images. Droplets are another form of Actions, except that they are drag-and-drop icons that you can use to quickly optimize or modify a file with little thought required.

Actions

Actions are controlled via the Actions palette (see Figure 6.33), which you can find under the Window menu. ImageReady ships with 15 Actions you can use, and, of course, you can create your own. To define a new Action, click on the Create New Action button at the bottom of the Actions palette and give the new Action a name. You can also choose to assign a keyboard shortcut to the Action, for easier playback. Then click on the Record button.

Figure 6.33. The Actions palette.


As you perform functions in your document, you'll notice entries being added to the Action. When you've completed the steps you want to record, click on the Stop Recording button at the bottom of the Actions palette. You can click on the disclosure triangle to view each individual step you recorded. Clicking the check mark to the far left of each entry enables or disables that step in the process, and clicking on the box just to the right of the arrow causes the Action to display a dialog box for that step during playback.

Furthermore, you can add conditional logic to any step in your Action. Choose a step and then choose Insert Conditional from the Actions palette fly-out menu. Choose a condition from the Conditional dialog box (see Figure 6.34) and click OK.

Figure 6.34. Specifying a condition for an Action.


To play back an Action, simply highlight the Action in the Actions palette and click on the Play button at the bottom of the palette.

Droplets

A droplet is similar to an Action, but it's a separate file you can place anywhere on your hard drive. You can then drag any file on your computer on top of the droplet and release the mouse. The droplet then processes the file, as specified by the action it contains.

To create a droplet, highlight an Action in the Actions palette and choose Create Droplet from the Actions palette fly-out menu. Additionally, you can click on the Create Droplet button in the Optimize palette (see Figure 6.35) to create a droplet that will automatically optimize a file to the settings you've specified in the Optimize palette.

Figure 6.35. The Create Droplet icon in the Optimize palette.




Sams Teach Yourself Adobe Creative Suite 2 All in One
Sams Teach Yourself Creative Suite 2 All in One
ISBN: 067232752X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 225
Authors: Mordy Golding

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net