Installation Notes:

1) Extract the ZIP file to a temporary directory on your hard drive.

2) Run the Setup Program to complete installation.

3) If using v5.5 of Photoshop, you'll need to ensure that the 'RunPhotoshopActionsForv5.exe' is in your program directory, then Point the 'Start -> Programs -> Run Photoshop Actions' menu item to the v5 file. Type library differnces between Photoshop v5, and 6 require the use of a differently compiled executable.

4) If you receive an error, that some windows components need to be updated for Setup to contiue, namely 'shlwapi.dll' needs to be copied, and Windows restarted. Please update Internet Explorer to v5.5, service pak 2 before continuing Setup. It can be found at the Windows Update site here: http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com

Release Notes:

1) More up to date notes MAY be available at: http://www.well.com/~rhenley/actions.htm

2) Some items are not intuitive at this point:

• a) Only one copy of Photoshop can be run at a time using (VB) Automation. Make sure that Photoshop is not already open and running when you start the VB program. Let the VB program start and stop Photoshop. Usually the VB application will find a running copy of Photoshop, but due to Adobe's non standard Automation implementation that's not guaranteed to work.

   

• b) If the VB application crashes (for instance it can't find an expected file) you will find that Photoshop is left running. If you have set the 'Set Photoshop Visible' check box, then it's a simple matter to close Photoshop. If Photoshop is running invisibly, you will need to end the process. You can do this in WinNT via the task manager.

   

• c) The List box listing on the 'Source Files Dialog Tab' determines the actual files that are to be processed. If you add files to the source directory, refresh the listing by clicking the '..' button and re-selecting a file in your source directory. The Source File Listbox is limited to displaying and processing 32767 files at one time.

   

• d) Only Natively supported Photoshop File Formats work as expected in Batch Mode.

  • i) For instance, Kodak Photo CD images utilize a Kodak supplied Plug-In, which may display a dialog. This hinders the automated processing of Photo CD image files. Please let us know of any difficulties you have batch processing PhotoCD files, we will endeavor to expand the PhotoCD batch functionality, which is only set to work properly on standard installations of the Windows2000 OS with this release. The PCD option should also work on Win98 but this was not tested.

  • ii) Due to the limited feature set of the PhotoCD plugin, those input files are not supported when running a Photoshop Action.

     

• e) The 'Help' button is not fully functional.

   

• f) The 'Custom Drop Shadow Dialog Tab' gives you the options:

   

  • i) To omit the Drop Shadow. This then only runs a file conversion between two formats on your image files.

     

  • ii) To only create image Thumbnails by specifying the maximum Image Height or Width constraint. Only the appropriate limiting value is used.

     

  • iii) To Specify a specific Image Resolution not available in the drop down list, select Other and enter a number in the Text box that appears. Note that doing so, disables the ability to turning off the Skip Drop Shadow option.

     

  • iv) To re-run the DropShadow options, just click on the 'Finished' (i.e. Start) button.

     

• g) The 'Color' and the 'Global Angle' Options of the 'Drop Shadow Parameters' are not functional.

   

• h) You use either the 'Custom Drop Shadow Dialog Tab' or the 'Action Dialog Tab' but not both on one run to process a set of files.

   

• i) The GIF file SaveAS option is implemented. Optional GIF parameters and transparency are not. In addition, due to the way Photoshop 6 handles saves, an extraneous 'Junk' file is temporarily written to all output directories.

   

• j) A rudimentary compiled HTML Help is now available. It requires any of the following components to be installed on your system:

  • 1) Microsoft Office 2000

  • 2) Microsoft Internet Explorer version 4.0 or later

  • 3) Microsoft Windows 98

  • 4) Microsoft Windows NT Server or Windows NT Workstation version 5.0 (i.e. Windows 2000)

   

• k) With Photoshop v5, if you're managing the Embedded Color Profiles with Photoshop's Color Management (File -> Color Settings -> Profile Setup), there are 2 things you might do to ensure that the Color Management Dialog will not display when opening files.

  • a) You can pre-set an 'Assumed Profile' to a valid ICC profile, and set the 'Profile Mismatch Handling' setting to either 'Ignore' (recommended), or 'Convert to XX Color', which will automatically convert the image's colorspace to the specified Color Workspace.

  • b) Use the 'More Options' dialog 'Disable Color Profile Warnings' checkbox. This will set the 'Profile Mismatch Handling' setting to 'Ignore' when the program starts Photoshop.

    Due to a limitation with the Photoshop v5 Automation exposure, it’s not possible to save the state of the Profile Setup dialog before changing the ‘Profile Mismatch Handling’ of RGB, CMYK, and Grayscale files.

    When the program exits it sets the Profile Mismatch Handling setting to 'Ask When Opening’

  With Photoshop v6, the program operation for Color Management settings is more robust. And slightly different. The program can retrieve the Color Management policies for 'Profile Mismatches' and 'Profile Missing' settings before it unchecks those Photoshop option settings, only if the 'Disable Color Profile Warnings' checkbox option is selected (the default setting).

  Upon exiting it will restore the Color Management policies to their original state.

November 27, 2001