Chapter 13: File Management and Automation

Photoshop's methods of automation are as vast as they are versatile, ranging from the wealth of disk-management options supplied by the new Bridge (which replaces the File Browser), to the ability to record your own multistep actions, to full-blown batch processing. You can rename multiple files at a time, save a folder of files in a different format, and apply a sequence of custom operations to documents that aren't even open . Some of the processes take only a few seconds to apply. Others give you a chance to go pick up your dry cleaning, catch up on your reading, or take up that fabulously rewarding hobby you've been daydreaming about. This chapter's goal is to show you Photoshop's many management and automation tools and help you master them ” turning Photoshop into your faithful servant.

Using the Bridge

The Bridge, a stand-alone application accessible from all the applications in the Creative Suite, replaces the File Browser for accessing, organizing, and storing data about your images. You can open the Bridge without opening Photoshop at all, or you can use one of these methods for opening it from within Photoshop:

  • The Go to Bridge button. Click this button (shown in Figure 13-1), found to the left of the palette dock. Photoshop remains open, and the Bridge opens either in its own window (Windows) or into the Mac workspace.

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    Figure 13-1: Click this button to access the Bridge.

  • Choose File Browse. This opens the Bridge.

  • Choose File Close and Go to Bridge. This closes the active image and opens The Bridge. You would do this when you're finished with an image and ready to go find another one, using the Bridge tools for accessing images. The Bridge interface appears in Figure 13-2. The Bridge workspace provides a menu bar, tabbed panels on the left, a large viewing area for looking at your files and folders, and navigational tools for moving around in the workspace.

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    Figure 13-2: The Bridge workspace is kind of like the old File Browser on steroids.

    Photoshop CS2  

    To call the Bridge a "feature" seems like a gross understatement. New to Photoshop CS2, the Bridge is really an application unto itself ” it has its own workspace, menus , and tools, and opens as a separate application in terms of how the operating system (Windows or Mac) sees it.

A typical Bridge session

The sequence of events that takes you to and through the Bridge might go something like this: You remember you need to find a particular photo but you're not sure of the file name . Or, you want to check and see if you have all the photos you should have stored in a particular folder, or on a particular CD. The Open dialog box doesn't show you all of your photos at once, and hopping out to the Finder(Mac) or Explorer (Windows) to look at thumbnails is too time-consuming . What to do? Fire up the Bridge.

Using any of the aforementioned methods ” clicking the Go to Bridge button or using the File Browse command ” you open the Bridge and begin looking for or at your photos. If you know where the photo is stored and just want to see all the images in a particular folder or on a specific disk, you can use the Folders panel on the left side of the workspace. Navigate the folder tree ” clicking on folders and their subfolders ” until you have the one you need selected. Figure 13-3 shows the Folder panel, with a folder selected, its content displayed as thumbnails in the main viewing area of the Bridge workspace.

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Figure 13-3: After you select a folder, its contents appear on the right in whatever view you choose from the View menu or with the View options buttons in the lower-right corner of the workspace.
Tip  

You can resize the different parts of the Bridge workspace by dragging the walls of the various panels. Drag to the right to widen the panel of tabs on the left; drag up and down on the dividers between the Favorites/Folders, Preview, and Metadata/Keyword panel areas. By resizing different areas of the workspace, you can rob space from information that you don't care about to make more room for the stuff you need to see more clearly or in its uncluttered entirety.

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What the heck is "metadata"?

The Metadata panel lets you view and edit more information about your images than you ever thought possible. By default, it's divided into three sections: File Properties, IPTC, and Camera Data (EXIF). The Exchangeable Image File format (EXIF) is a standard for appending nonpixel information ” known as metadata ” to an image file. EXIF is most widely used by digital cameras to describe a photograph's history, including the date and time it was shot, the make and model of the camera, the flash setting, and the focal length. In the Camera Data (EXIF) section of the Metadata panel, you may be able to find out all kinds of wonderful information about digital photographs that you shot and edited years ago.

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Assuming you're looking at an array of thumbnails of the subfolders and images within the folder, drive, or disk you've chosen from the tree, now you can click an individual photo and view its data (see the Metadata panel in the lower left, shown in Figure 13-4) or change your view to Details (View As Details) so that you can see the name, size , and date/time the file was last modified.

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Figure 13-4: In Details view, you trade a thumbnail for the file's statistics ” and if the Metadata panel is showing, you see the same information.

Opening images from the Bridge

If you want to open a particular file, just double-click it. If it was not already open, Photoshop opens in its own window (the Bridge remains open, too), with the selected file open in its own image window. If Photoshop was already open, it becomes the active application, and displays the selected file in its own image window ” so the final outcome is the same, whether the Bridge tells Photoshop to open and show you your image, or if you had Photoshop open, ready, and waiting.

You can also select multiple images, too ” just click on them and press the Shift key to select a series of files, or the Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac) key to select random files from the same folder. After they're all selected, you can drag them to a different folder, or to a disk as represented in the Folders panel on the left. You can also rate the images, or turn them into Favorites, which you can then access as a separate group through the Favorites panel (sharing a panel with Folders) on the left side of the Bridge workspace.

Tip  

To open or move everything but the file or files you have selected, choose Edit Invert Selection. The Edit menu also houses commands for selecting everything in the open folder (Select All), deselecting (Deselect All), and viewing only certain files ” such as only those files that are labeled. Find out about applying labels later in this section on the Bridge.

Your Bridge view options

The whole point of the Bridge is to give you a powerful, yet simple way to view your images and access information about them. Of course, being able to open the files after viewing them is important to, but you can do that through Photoshop itself. No, the big plus to the Bridge involves the image viewing options, each accessible through the View menu (big surprise, eh?). You can also use the view buttons in the lower left corner of the workspace.

  • Slideshow. Choose View Slide Show or press Ctrl+L ( z +L on the Mac) to see a one-image-at-a-time view of the images in a particular folder or on a particular disc. When the show starts, instructions for navigating the show display(you can see the first image behind them) ” press H to hide the instructions after you've taken note of them. After the show is over (press Esc to stop the show at any time), you return to whichever view you were in when you invoked the show. A slide show in progress appears in Figure 13-5.

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    Figure 13-5: Want to have your images shown to you, one at a time?You can start aSlide show.

  • Thumbnails. You may find this view to be your favorite view for looking at folders or discs that contain lots of files ” the view of the images is tiny, so you can see lots of them at one time. You also see the date of the file's last modification, and if you mouse over the thumbnail, a tip appears for a few seconds, telling you the format, size, and the dimensions of the file.

    Tip  

    Adjust the number of thumbnails seen simultaneously by dragging the Thumbnail Size slider (in the lower right of the workspace, under the thumbnails viewing area). Drag to the right to increase the thumbnail size, which means you see fewer of them at a time. Drag to the left to shrink the thumbnails and see many files at once.

  • Filmstrip. This view is really very cool, in that you can see a nice, big preview of the images, one at a time, plus you can see thumbnails of a series of images all at once, along the bottom of the viewing area (see Figure 13-6). To see the bigger view of the image, click once on the thumbnail. You can drag the Thumbnail Size slider to see more thumbnails at once ” the smaller the thumbnails, the larger the preview of the selected image.

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    Figure 13-6: Filmstrip view gives you an enlarged preview along with a series of thumbnails.

  • Details. If you choose View As Details, you see thumbnails (resizable with the Thumbnail Size slider, mentioned earlier) as well as much of the metadata that is also stored in the Metadata panel on the right side of the window. You can see the file name, date and time of creation, date last modified (including the time, down to the second), the size of the file, the format, and the dimensions.

  • Versions and Alternates. This view allows you to keep track of versions of your images ” the subsequently saved versions that you've created (using the File Save Version command) for sharing, backup, or to prepare the image for Web use. When you switch to this view (View As Versions and Alternates), the view changes to display a very Details-like view ” with the addition of a second column that shows information about alternate versions of the files. For files with no alternates, the words "No versions to display" appear in the column.

    Note  

    You can move and resize the panels on the left side of the Bridge workspace much like you can move and resize the palettes in Photoshop. Grab the panel's tab itself and drag it up or down to regroup the tabs within the right-hand panel. You can group the palettes in any configuration you want ” for example, you can drag them all so that they share a single box so less vertical space is taken up in the left-hand panel. To determine which tabs display, use the View menu to select and deselect them by name. A check mark indicates that the panel is currently displayed.

Rotating images

In Photoshop, you can rotate the image canvas, turning an image that was scanned lengthwise or upside down so that it appears properly on-screen. The change made through the Image Rotate Canvas command is actually applied to the image itself. In the Bridge, you can rotate images, but only for the purpose of viewing them within the Bridge; the change in the rotation of an image within the Bridge is not made a part of the file itself.

As shown in Figure 13-7, you can right-click (or Ctrl+click on the Mac) any image and choose Rotate 180 °, 90 ° Clockwise, or 90 ° Counterclockwise from the pop-up menu. The displayed thumbnail or filmstrip display is then changed to the rotation you chose. You can also access these rotation commands in the Edit menu.

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Figure 13-7: Tired of cocking your head to the right to view an image thumbnail? Rotate the display and give your neck a break.
Tip  

In the upper-right corner of the workspace is a series of buttons ” Unfiltered, Create a New Folder, and then the two rotation buttons: Rotate 90 ° Clockwise and Rotate 90 ° Counterclockwise. You can use these on whichever image is selected at the time ” or, use them to rotate multiple selected images all at once.

Adding an image to favorites

Like the Web sites you've added to your Favorites (or Bookmarks) in your Web browser, images that you want to come back to quickly and easily (and frequently) can also be turned into Favorites, accessible through the Favorites panel on the left side of the Bridge workspace.

Tip  

If you're not a big Bridge user and want to easily access your oft-used images, increase the number of files included in the File Open Recent submenu (in Photoshop). Choose Edit Preferences File Handling and increase the Recent File List Contains setting. Choose some number that makes it possible for the file(s) you want to see in the list to remain there even after you add other files you may open and use throughout the day or week (which could potentially push your desired files off the list).

To add an image to Favorites, just right-click (or z +click if you're on the Mac) and choose Add to Favorites from the pop-up menu. You can also choose File Addto Favorites. After adding an image to Favorites, you can remove it again by right- clicking the image in the Favorites list (or z +clicking on the Mac) and choosing Remove from Favorites from the pop-up menu.

Tip  

When you click an image in the Favorites list, the Bridge assumes you want to open it in Photoshop, so don't click the image unless you want that to happen.

Labeling and rating images

Humans' affinity for ranking and rating things is obvious. There are entire books of Top-10 lists, and a popular late-night talk show does a funny Top-10 list every night. Applying value, even if it's totally subjective , is something most of us can't resist. The Bridge, being aware of this, gives you the ability to rate and label your images ” ranking them (from one to five stars) and applying color-coded labels. As shown in Figure 13-8, the Label menu offers five ratings and five color labels, plus the ability to incrementally increase and decrease the existing rating for any image. You can also right-click an image (or z +click on the Mac) and use the Image command in the pop-up menu to access the Label color options.

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Figure 13-8: Here, the selected image already has a 2-star rating and a yellow label. The rating is about to be increased from the Label menu.

Viewing and using metadata

Metadata, as described earlier in this chapter, is a cornucopia of file information, divided into three sections. You can scroll through them in the Metadata panel, which includes File Properties (the most commonly used, and therefore visible without scrolling), IPTC Core data, and Camera Data (EXIF). For many of your files, the vast majority of these bits of data will be blank ” clicking the little pencil icon next to any currently blank or editable fields opens up a text box into which you can enter the appropriate information.

If you click the Metadata panel's options menu button (the triangle button on the top right of the panel's tab, shown, with menu, in Figure 13-9), you're presented with the following commands/options:

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Figure 13-9: The Metadata panel's menu offers options for the panel's display and for using data to locate files.
  • Find. This command opens the Find dialog box (surprisingly enough), through which you can enter various criteria to find a file in any drive or folder to which your computer has access. Enter your specifics ” Look In (type a location, or click Browse), indicate whether or not to include subfolders in the search, and whether or not to find all files. In the Criteria section(see Figure 13-10), you can enter several items, and those displayed are just examples of what you could ask the Bridge to look for ” you can set up as many as 13 levels of criteria, with File name, File Size, Date Created, Date Modified, Label, Rating, Keywords, Description, Comments, or All Metadata as your choices for which aspect of the file's data to use in finding it.

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    Figure 13-10: Use the Find dialog box to locate a file based on any of the stored information about the file.

  • Increase Font Size and Decrease Font Size . These commands change the display font size for the data in the Metadata panel.

  • Preferences. This opens the Preferences dialog box (shown in Figure 13-11) through which you can customize the Bridge. You can customize General settings (default Thumbnail display options, the contents of the Favorites panel), the metadata that's stored, Label colors, File Type Associations (which applications are used, by default, to open various graphic file types), Advanced(file size limits, Language, and Cache settings), and Adobe Stock Photos options.

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    Figure 13-11: Click General, Metadata, Labels, or any of the other Bridge areas listed on the left to display options in the main dialog box.

  • Append Metadata . Using preset templates, you can establish new data that is stored about individual files.

  • Replace Metadata . Instead of adding to the metadata, this command allows you to choose from data templates that replace the metadata that appears by default.

Viewing and adding keywords

Next to the Metadata panel tab is the Keywords panel tab, shown in Figure 13-12. Keywords are searchable text that is associated with individual images, stored with the file's data to help you locate files easily. Keywords are one of the criteria you can set in the Find dialog box used to search for files. For example, if you're looking for all your vacation photos, you can tell Photoshop to find all files with "Vacation" in the Keyword list.

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Figure 13-12: The Keywords panel enables you to associate your images with words that will help you find the images later.

To view the Keywords for any file, click the file in the main display area, and then click the Keywords tab on the left. A series of words ” names , places, categories such as "Birthday" and "Wedding" ” appear, with check boxes next to them. Any check marks indicate an association with that keyword.

To add your own keywords to the list, click the Keywords panel options menu button (that triangle again), and choose New Keyword. An "Untitled Key" box appears (see the menu and the resulting Untitled Key in Figure 13-13) and becomes highlighted, and you can type a new keyword to replace the sample text. The new word is made part of the Keyword Set selected at the time. A good preparatory step is to go into the Keywords panel and build all the keywords you can think of using for any images ” that way, the words are there and waiting whenever you're ready to begin associating them with your images.

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Figure 13-13: Entering a new keyword into the +Untitled Key text box.

To set up a new category, click the options button and choose New Keyword Set. An Untitled Set appears, and you can again replace the sample text with a set name of your choice. After making a new set, use the New Keywords command to create keywords for the set. For example, if you create a set called "Clients," you can create keywords for individual companies or individuals, and/or you can create keywords for client- related events or jobs, like "Convention" or "Publicity."

After you've created your own keywords and sets, additional commands become available in the Keywords panel options menu. Rename and Delete commands appear, and you can use them to do just what you'd expect ” rename a selected keyword or set, or delete a keyword or set you no longer need.

Note  

The Find command appears in the Keywords options menu, just as it does in the Metadata menu. The resulting dialog box is the same.

To apply a keyword to an individual image, select the image, and then place check marks in the boxes next to one or more of the words in the Keywords panel. You can check as many boxes as you want, and if you think of any other words that you might want to use in searching for the selected image in the future, use the New Keyword command to create them.

Selecting and saving a Bridge workspace

"A place for everything, and everything in its place" ” a saying that many tidy people live by. It's also a good motto for Photoshop users, because productivity hinges on easy access to the tools you need. Keyboard shortcuts can help put things at your fingertips (literally), but they don't always help enough when it comes to using palettes, tools, and so forth. Photoshop is sensitive to this and gives you the Window Workspace Save Workspace command. The Bridge is similarly helpful, offering a Window Workspace Save Workspace command of its own.

When you choose this command, the Save Workspace dialog box opens, giving you the chance to apply a relevant name to the workspace, and to choose a keyboard shortcut (Ctrl [or z for Mac users] + any of the function keys from F6 through F12, except F10 for Windows users) that will invoke the saved workspace configuration. You also have an option to Save Window Location as Part of Workspace ” meaning that if you have the Bridge window sized and positioned "just so," you can save that position, too.

Note  

What about preset workspaces, you may ask. Good question. If you choose Window Workspace, you can choose from four different workspaces: Lightbox, File Navigator, Metadata Focus, or Filmstrip Focus. Each workspace caters to a different perspective on your images ” looking at particular images in specific folders, expanding the Metadata panel area so that the content can be read without scrolling left to right, or letting the Filmstrip view take over the whole workspace.

Managing the cache

You may spend several minutes generating previews, rotating thumbnails, and ranking images inside the Bridge. Because not a single one of these functions or its impact on the image display in the Bridge is saved with the image file, you might wonder how Photoshop prevents you from losing your work. It does this by saving a cache file that records all changes made to an entire folder full of images.

This all happens in the background without any assistance from you, but problems can crop up. Imagine these two possible problem scenarios:

  • Sharing images over a network: There is one cache file per folder and each resides in a system folder on your computer. This is called a local cache because it resides locally on your machine ” important because a networked version of Photoshop running on a different computer cannot share a local cache file. If you and a coworker are browsing through images on a server and you rotate a few thumbnails or assign a few rankings, you might assume that the coworker can see what you just did. She can't, though, because her local cache is different than yours.

  • Browsing images on a CD: Suppose that you start with a folder of 200 images. After giving Photoshop a few minutes to generate the thumbnails, you rotate and rank the images as you see fit. Then you burn the images to a CD, having faith that the thumbnails, rotations , and ranks will be maintained . When you put the CD in your drive and view it in the Bridge, however, Photoshop starts generating the thumbnails all over again ” the rotation and ranks have been lost. The cache remains intact, but it's linked to the folder, not the CD. Photoshop, therefore, has to create a new cache for the CD, so that after you redo your work, the CD browses as expected from that point on ” but only on this one machine . Other computers require their own local caches.

See how messy and complicated this can get? These two scenarios are just the tip of the iceberg, as the saying goes; there's a lot more going on under the surface than you might ever imagine.

There has to be a solution, right? It can't be that you have to lose all your work at the slightest change in display or other settings, nor can it be that you have to spend all your time worrying about this caching process. There is in fact a solution: Just choose Tools Cache Export Cache, and without any additional help from you, Photoshop exports three cache files. From that point on, the three cache files are available to other users on a network; you can burn them to a CD, or you can keep them with a folder on the off chance that you move the folder or rename it.

Caution  

Exporting is a manual process, so don't expect Photoshop to update your changes. If you change a rotation or ranking and want to make it available to other users or computers, choose Export Cache again. When burning image CDs, get in the habit of choosing Export Cache immediately before writing the CD; this ensures that the cache is as up-to-date as possible.

If you tend to spend days and nights combing through a seemingly endless parade of images, your cache files can grow fairly quickly. Luckily, you can delete, or"purge," the cache just as easily as you can export it. From the Bridge Tools menu, choose Cache Purge Cache for This Folder or Purge Central Cache ” whichever is appropriate for your situation. You can either clear the cache of the particular folder you're currently viewing or clear the Photoshop cache files from your hard drive completely.

Tip  

You can create cache files for your current file's subfolders by choosing Tools Cache Build Cache for Subfolders (using the Bridge Tools menu).

Batch renaming

The Bridge Batch Rename command (File Batch Rename) lets you rename multiple files in one operation. To rename a handful of specific files, click and Shift+click on their thumbnails to select them. To rename all files in a folder, choose Select All or Deselect All from the Edit menu. (If any files are selected, Batch Rename will be performed on only those selected files; but if no files are selected, Batch Rename will occur on all files within the folder.) Then right-click on an image (Control+click on the Mac) and choose Batch Rename (or choose Automate Batch Rename from the Bridge menu bar) to display the dialog box pictured in Figure 13-14.

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Figure 13-14: Use the Batch Rename command to rename multiple files in a single operation. You can select naming options from a pop-up menu, or enter your own name.

Your first option in the Batch Rename dialog box (see Figure 13-14) is to rename files in the folder where they currently reside (the most common choice) or move them to a different folder. If you click Move to other folder, the Bridge will ask you to select a destination. Note that moving means just that ” Photoshop relocates the files as opposed to copying them to the new location.

You can specify up to six File Naming variables , though two or three are generally sufficient. The three Document Name options retain or change the case of the name currently assigned to the file. Alternatively, you can enter your own name into an option box.

Tip  

Note that Batch Rename offers several options for adding serial numbers, handy when preparing image sequences. Such serial numbers normally start at 1 (or A when using letters ), but if you want to start with another number, just enter it in the Starting Serial# option box.

Caution  

To ensure that your images are named so that they'll work on any computer, select all three Compatibility check boxes. (Either Windows or Mac OS will already be selected, depending on your platform.) Then click OK to apply your changes. Note that, as with other Bridge operations, renaming is not undoable. So be sure all settings are correct before you click OK. If you have any doubt how the command will work, experiment on a few trial images before renaming important files.

Actions are covered later in this chapter, but as a little preview, it's worth pointing out that Photoshop gives you the ability to initiate actions to a group of selected images directly from the Bridge. If you want to perform an action on a group of images, select them in the Bridge and choose Automate Batch from the menu bar. This brings up the Batch dialog box where you can set which images will be affected, whether or not the actions will be interrupted by dialog boxes and warnings, and how to react if there are any errors. Additionally, you can set a naming structure in fields that are identical to those in the Batch Rename dialog box. Batch processing is covered in an upcoming section.

Using the File Info command

As discussed earlier, an image file can contain a lot more information than the image data. In addition to pixels, alpha channels, color profiles, and all the other image data you can cram into your image files, your images can contain a variety of reference information ” where you shot the picture, who owns the image copyright, what the weather was like, relevant sonnets, and so on.

Despite the plethora of fields available to you through the Bridge Metadata panel, sometimes you need to be able to edit and access more information than a little panel can hold. That's when you should choose File File Info from the Bridge menu bar or press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+I ( z +Option+Shift+I on the Mac) to display the File Info dialog box, shown in Figure 13-15.

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Figure 13-15: You can document your image in encyclopedic detail using the wealth of options in the File Info dialog box, opened from the new Bridge File menu.
Tip  

The File Info dialog box contains 12 panels. You switch to any of the first nine panels by pressing Ctrl+1 through Ctrl+9 ( z +1 through z +9 on the Mac) or by selecting the panel name from the list on the left side of the window.

Here's a brief overview of the options on each panel:

  • Description: The options in this panel are fairly straightforward. For example, if you want to create a caption, enter it into the Description option box, which can hold up to 2,000 characters . If you select Description in the Output section of the Print with Preview dialog box, the caption appears underneath the image when you print it from Photoshop. You can also add a copyright notice to your image. If you choose Copyrighted from the Copyright Status pop-up menu, a copyright symbol ( ) will appear in the window title bar and in the information box at the bottom of the screen on the PC or at the bottom of the image window on the Mac. This symbol tells people viewing the image that they can go to the Description panel to get more information about the owner of the image copyright. Choose Public Domain if you want to make it clear that the work isn't copyrighted (an Unmarked image might actually be a neglected copyrighted one).

    You can also include the URL for your Web site, if you have one. Then, when people have your image open in Photoshop, they can come to this panel and click the Go to URL button to launch their Web browsers and jump to the URL.

    Tip  

    Click the down-pointing arrowhead to the right of an option to reveal a pop-up menu containing information that you've previously entered for the option in other images. For example, if you've entered yourself as the author of another image you recently worked on, you can click the arrowhead next to the Author option and choose your name.

  • Camera Data: Following the Description options you'll find two panels of Camera Data values. This is where the EXIF information discussed earlier in the chapter is displayed. As you may remember, EXIF data is written by the digital camera, not the user, so these fields cannot be altered .

  • Categories: The Categories panel may seem foreign to anyone who hasn't worked with a news service. Many large news services use a system of three- character categories to file and organize stories and photographs. If you're familiar with this system, you can enter the three-character code into the Category option box and even throw in a few supplemental categories up to 32 characters long.

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    Protect your images with a watermark

    Because only people who open your image in Photoshop have access to the information in the File Info dialog box, you may want to embed a digital watermark into your image as well, making your copyright data part of the image itself. Many watermarking programs exist, ranging from simple tools that merely imprint copyright data to those that build in protection features designed to prevent illegal downloading and reproduction of images. Photoshop provides a watermarking utility from Digimarc as a plug-in on the Filters menu. Before using the plug-in, visit the Digimarc Web site ( www.digimarc.com ) to find out which, if any, of the Digimarc watermarking schemes best suits the type of work you do.

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  • History: If you've enabled the History Log option in the General panel of the Preferences dialog box and you're saving the log in the file's metadata, this panel displays the history data for the image. Otherwise, it's blank.

  • IPTC Contact: This panel allows you to enter and store information on the image creator ” his or her name, job title, address, city, and phone and e-mail contact information. What you enter here appears in the Metadata tab.

  • IPTC Content: Use this panel to store information on the visual content of the image, including a Headline, Description, Keywords, and an IPTC Subject Code. You can also enter your information as the Description Writer.

  • IPTC Image: This is the more formal information about the image ” the date it was created, Intellectual Genre, the IPTC Scene, and information about where the image was captured, physically ” the Location, City, Country, and so on. Like the other IPTC panels' content, you don't have to enter anything here, unless your project requires it.

  • IPTC Status: You can record information about your copyright and the image status in this panel. You should be sure that your Copyright Notice and Rights Usage Terms are legally accurate, so that you don't leave any loopholes for someone to slip through and make inappropriate use of your image.

  • Adobe Stock Photos: This panel lists information about the stock photos that ship with Photoshop CS2. If you didn't download or install them, this panel will be blank.

  • Origin: This panel provides some more option boxes into which you can enter specific information about how the image came to be, including the date, location, a headline, and a few others. Click the Today button to automatically enter the current date and time into the Date Created field. You can use the Urgency pop-up menu to indicate the editorial timeliness of the photo.

  • Advanced: The Advanced panel displays all of the information you've set for the image in metadata's XMP format. On a PC, file information is only saved in image file formats that support saving extra data with the file. This includes the native Photoshop (.psd) format, EPS, PDF, JPEG, and TIFF. On a Mac, file information is saved with an image regardless of the format you use. Photoshop merely tacks the text onto the image's resource fork. But a resource fork won't travel with the file to a Windows machine. If you need the metadata of an image to travel with the image file, regardless of platform, application, or operating system, saving out an XMP file is the way to go. XMP stands for eXtensible Metadata Platform, and it's essentially a text file containing metadata that can be assigned to an image and read by many applications. The Advanced panel lets you save this type of file with the metadata you're currently viewing. From this panel you can also open an XMP file and use it in place of your current metadata, as well as append the information from an XMP file on top of your image's metadata. Selecting any of the categories of metadata in the Advanced panel and clicking the Delete button will clear that specific data from your image file.

Perhaps the most exciting metadata-related feature in Photoshop is the ability to create metadata templates. If you've got a collection of images with the same author or origin information, you don't want to have to go through the task of opening the File Info dialog box and manually entering metadata (or importing an XMP file) for each and every one. Naturally, Photoshop can take care of this for you. Creating a metadata template is simple: Just open the File Info dialog box for any one of the images and enter the common characteristics of the group. Next, click the right-pointing arrowhead in the upper-right corner of the dialog box and choose Save Metadata Template. You'll be asked to enter a name but not a location(Photoshop does that for you). Click Save and you're done. Photoshop automatically adds the metadata template to the pop-up menu in the File Info dialog box, so you can easily access it time and time again.

You can assign your saved metadata templates to multiple files at once in the Bridge. Simply select the files to which you want to assign the metadata and choose Edit Replace Metadata to display a submenu that contains all of the templates you've previously saved. If you want to add metadata from a saved template but keep the original characteristics of your image (such as name, description, or source), choose Edit Append Metadata instead and select a template. One of the advantages of appending versus replacing metadata in an image is that it adds any keywords saved in the template to the existing keywords in the image.



Photoshop CS2 Bible
Photoshop CS2 Bible
ISBN: 0764589725
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 95

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