14 August 2014

Automation

It's ridiculous to do the same operation over and over again rather than letting the computer do it by itself. When rendering I don't do a bunch of F9 (LightWave's Render Image key) and then compile them into an animation, I hit F10 (Render Scene). Likewise, I lose so much time in Photoshop saving images as PNGs, but now I can use Actions:


  1. Load an image you want to save as PNG;
  2. Open the Actions window in Window > Actions (coincidentally F9 is the default keyboard shortcut)
  3. Create a new Macro, name it, assign it a Function key shortcut and give it a colour if you like then hit the Record button.
  4. Save your image as a PNG (you only need do this once now)
  5. Now, whenever you want to save an image as a PNG you only need press your assigned key. You will get the Save As... file requester pop up where you can write the name you want but the filetype will already be set to PNG.
Only two things are lacking here.
  1.  The ability to choose a keyboard shortcut that is better than a Function key with possible Ctrl or Shift modifiers;
  2. The ability to get rid of the stupid interlace requester that always pops up when saving as PNG. 
 I will add more automation stuff here as I do it.