Created
July 19, 2003 © Copyright Moon's Designs
Property of Moon's Designs
This is my creation, any similarity
to other tutorials on the Internet is unintentional.
Please do not copy or place this tutorial or any
graphics to any other place without written permission
directly from me. Thank you.
This tutorial is written
in and for PSP8 and assumes you have a working knowledge
of PSP.
YOU
WILL NEED:
JASC's PSP8 (30
day free trial) - You can get it HERE
Screenshots
are resized and compressed for faster loading.
DO'S AND DON'TS FOR RECORDING
Here are some general rules as to
what you can or can't script:
-
You cannot script
your user interface customization (workspace),
you will need to save this as a new workspace
when you have customized it.
-
You can script your
general preferences and your file locations.
This is nice to have on hand in case of
a computer crash, having to reformat your
drive, getting a new computer or just
the need to reinstall your PSP8 for whatever
reason.
-
You cannot script
operations inside the browser, print layout,
gradient creation or the floating/docking/arranging
of tools, palettes and windows.
-
Material palette
operations and tool palette selections
can be scripted but not recorded. Okay,
that one confused you didn't it? You can't
automatically record them via the built-in
script recorder feature, however, you
can write these actions via the text editor
application. You will need to know how
to do this by reading the information
in the Learning Center folder that was
previously discussed.
-
Plugins are scriptable,
however the plugin must support scripting.
If they don't, you cannot script them.
Of course you can always write to the
author of that plugin and ask if they
are planning to update in the future to
make them scriptable ~smiles~.
Below is the set of buttons
on the Script Toolbar is for recording.
1. Start Recording; 2. Pause Recording; 3.
Cancel Recording; 4. Save Recording
TIP: Before you start recording
a script, you may want to write down the specific
actions you wish to record.
(1) When you are ready to
record press the Start Recording button, perform
you actions and when you are done click (4)
Save Script Recording.
For example, each week with
my PSP-Dynasty Yahoo Group I make a background
for the results pages from one of the members
results. I resize the image to 125 pixels on
the longest side, go to Effects/Image Effects/Seamless
Tiling and use the default, add a new layer
and flood fill with white, reduce the opacity
to about 50% and save with the jpg optimizer.
I do this for 3-4 images per week and let me
tell you it was a pain to always have to perform
all of these steps to each lesson each week.
I wrote a simple script for it. I had my graphic
that I was going to use active, clicked on
the Start Recording Button, performed all of
the steps and when I was done clicked the Save
Script Recording Button.
If this is the first script you
have saved when hitting Save Script, it will automatically
go to your Scripts Restricted folder, where you
have your My PSP8 Folders located, for saving. You
made this script for you to use in the future and
you can save it in your trusted scripts folder if
you like.
If you are going to share your
script with someone else, do NOT check Save Dialog
Placements in the Save As Window.
If you are going to share your
script with someone else, you have no idea what
their screen resolution is. Saving the dialog position
creates dialogs and sizes that are undesirable to
some people. If you download a script from someone,
you should make sure to check the script to make
sure the placement is off before running them.
In your save dialog box is a
description button, you will find this under the
save and cancel buttons. This is where you can enter
the author, copyright, and description information.
PSP8 also provides you with 9
special scripts, called Bound Scripts. You will
find them in your MyPSP8Folders/Scripts Restricted
folder. These scripts are essentially commands that
you can drag onto a toolbar, a menu, or assign them
a keyboard shortcut. Create a boundscript as you
normally would crate a script. You must name it
BoundScript and the number in your MyPSP8Folders/Scripts
Restricted folder. You may want to delete the supplied
sample Boundscript of the same name to make sure
you are using your new script first.
After you create your Boundscript
you can place it on your toolbar for easy access.
Right click on your tool bar and go to customize.
Scroll down on the left side until you see your
BoundScripts. On the right side drag your new Boundscript
up to the toolbar you want it placed on.
JASC provides us with several
premade scripts. Some you may find useful, others
not. One thing to keep in mind is that if you aren't
sure what the script will do, open the selected
script and view the description. I'm using the leaves
image from the Sample Images that we received with
our PSP8 as an example. I have duplicated the image
so I wouldn't accidentally save over the original
and I promoted the background to a layer.
If a script can't be run with
a chosen image, you will get an error message. View
the edit information to see why this may not be
working. For example, the Black & White Sketch
won't run on this image. I received the error that
the Command could not complete because the document
type is unsupported.
When I open the Edit, I see that
the script starts off with Layer Promote Background.
Because I have already done this
I cannot use this particular script unless I go
to Layers/Merge/Flatten, which brings it back to
a background layer, and it will run. I did this
and here is how it turned out.
Let's explore some of the other
scripts. First, there are several artistic effects
such as Art, Black & White, Fine Retriculate,
Night Vision, Painted Carved Wood and Watercolor
- just to name a few. Keep your eye on the Status
Bar to see what the script is doing.
There are scripts that might
ask you a question or will stop on a specific action
where you can either accept the defaults or change
them to your liking. This will happen, even if you
are running the script silently, if a script has
an Interactive Mode set in it - such as the Large
Mosaic Script.
There is a script called Script
Manager. Run this script and the following dialog
box will come up.
In the script manager you will
see all of the "vital" information regarding
the script. The Author, Copyright, Description,
Location is where your script is saved, and if it
is a Trusted Script or not. You can also do a number
of things with a script in the Script Manager. You
can Delete a script, it will ask you if you really
want to delete a particular script or not. You can
rename a script, move a script to a different folder,
and you can go into the text editor.
There are a number of other very
helpful scripts, in my opinion, that JASC has provided
us. The Capture Palette will make a series of squares
filled with solid colors making a pseudo palette
for you. There is the Center Layer script. For example
if you add a new layer and add a text that you would
like to have centered perfectly, run the Center
Layer Script. If you have a digital camera that
supports EXIF information, there is an EXIF Captioning
Script that will put camera and exposure information
at the bottom of the image. This is a picture of
one of our cats, Princess U-turn, that I took with
the digital camera and added the EXIF Captioning
Script.
Then there are the "fun"
scripts, such as adding a border with a drop shadow
or the simple caption script. I maintain a website
for our local no-kill cat/kitty rescue organization
in the West Valley, Valley
Cats, Inc. I take a lot of pictures of the cats
that we have for adoption and I use the Simple Caption
Script a lot. The name of your graphic automatically
comes up as the text and you can change it and create
your own text. After you click OK go to your layer
palette and you will see that everything is maintained
in layers, the text is vectored and you can edit
your text, convert to curves, change the colors
or whatever your little heart desires. You can also
change the page surface if you like.
I hope this lesson has given
you a little more knowledge and understanding regarding
scripts. They are wonderful for allowing you to
work smart and automate repetitive actions.
