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Author Topic: name of folder used in an action changes if renamed outside photoshop CC  (Read 2205 times)

fnphoto

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I have been using PS for years and never encountered this. This happens with PS CC and Maverick.

During the recording of an action, I  "save as" the file to a specific folder on the desktop (or elsewhere).
I stop the recording and play the action, it works fine.
The problem is that if I rename the folder in finder or elsewhere , the change is reflected in the action. If I trash the folder, same thing. It happens with PS CC open, closed or even after a reboot.

This is a real problem for me as I use actions with multiple "save as" commands to a folder (let's call it "job" ) with multiple sub-folders such as psd, jpg @10, web, etc... Once the action is done, I rename the folder to a job number and start again with another one. (I have multiple similar folders that I duplicated and just have to rename to "job" when I need one.)

Is this a bug? It does not happen in earlier versions.

Thank you
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Redcrown

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Re: name of folder used in an action changes if renamed outside photoshop CC
« Reply #1 on: November 17, 2013, 03:36:12 am »

Sounds like you are trying to save (in the action) to a folder that does not exist because you renamed it or trashed it.

I don't have PS CC and Maverick, but no version of Photoshop I know of will create a folder for you.

Suggest you simply change your workflow. After working a batch of photos into the "job" folder, create a new folder "job1" and move the images from job to job1, leaving the job folder in place but empty. Ready to receive new images from your action.
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fnphoto

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Re: name of folder used in an action changes if renamed outside photoshop CC
« Reply #2 on: November 17, 2013, 11:55:03 am »

In previous versions of PS, if I try to save to a folder that does not exist, the action will stop. In this case, the folder name has CHANGED even before I had a chance to play the action.

What I am trying to do is the exact same thing that I have been doing with success in previous versions of PS. I am not trying to have PS create folders.

Your suggestion of moving the images from job to job1 doesn't work because the changes in folder names will be reflected in the action immediately (it does not happen with previous versions of PS) and the action will start saving to job1 instead of job.

Unless you try this in PS CC, you will not experience what I do. Anyone using PS CC and Maverick?
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john beardsworth

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Re: name of folder used in an action changes if renamed outside photoshop CC
« Reply #3 on: November 17, 2013, 12:55:52 pm »

How are you running the action? From the actions panel? Or from Image Processor. Let's see a screenshot of it, with the save steps expanded.
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fnphoto

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Re: name of folder used in an action changes if renamed outside photoshop CC
« Reply #4 on: November 17, 2013, 01:04:22 pm »

I am not sure if I am making it clear. The problem happens before the action is played.

 
Screen shot 1 Here is my test action with a folder "test" on the desktop. It has two sub-folders, "psd" and "jpg"

Screen shot 2- Now,  here what happens when I rename the folder “test” to “test 2” AFTER I stop recording the action. The action now shows test 2. It happens even if I close PS before renaming the file.

If you do this in a previous version of PS, it will not happen
« Last Edit: November 17, 2013, 01:07:23 pm by fnphoto »
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john beardsworth

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Re: name of folder used in an action changes if renamed outside photoshop CC
« Reply #5 on: November 17, 2013, 01:33:53 pm »

OK, I can reproduce that in CS6 on OSX10.9.

I'm not sure why this is happening. Could it be related to how Mac saves file and folder names as a kind of Unix ID? Let's see if someone here knows their Mac OS better.

John
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john beardsworth

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Re: name of folder used in an action changes if renamed outside photoshop CC
« Reply #6 on: November 18, 2013, 04:12:29 am »

I've bounced this off a couple of people and it seems my explanation is probably right. I'm quite surprised that actions included such Unix intelligence and didn’t simply hard code the folder name, but it's look like that's what happens. I bet it pre-dates OSX 10.9.

I would normally avoid save steps in an action and run actions from Image Processor / droplets, or batch process from Lightroom. Another alternative would be to script it, if you know how, then maybe running the script from an action.
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fnphoto

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Re: name of folder used in an action changes if renamed outside photoshop CC
« Reply #7 on: November 18, 2013, 09:40:03 am »

Processing through Lightroom would not work in the situation because I need different  actions to be applied to each folder

The only way would be through Image Processor Pro but I'll have to break down my main action into multiple ones and create more than one script since it each has a limit of 10 sub-folders.

The fact that image processor pro does not present the same problem (I can rename the receiving main folder and just get an error when running the script) tells me that it could be the same for actions if Adobe wanted to.
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john beardsworth

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Re: name of folder used in an action changes if renamed outside photoshop CC
« Reply #8 on: November 18, 2013, 11:00:12 am »

Sure, it could be done how you want - and I'm very surprised it isn't. Image Processor hard codes the folder name, but clearly some clever guys at Adobe decided to use the Unix IDs in Photoshop actions.

Do you know how to script? Whenever I need to run complex processes that's what I do. Although the new conditional action steps are welcome, you can build a lot more logic into a JavaScript and you can certainly hard code folder names.
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fnphoto

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Re: name of folder used in an action changes if renamed outside photoshop CC
« Reply #9 on: November 18, 2013, 05:07:39 pm »

I never looked into PS's scripting features but it should not be too difficult. I have done some java scripting in the past.
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john beardsworth

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Re: name of folder used in an action changes if renamed outside photoshop CC
« Reply #10 on: November 19, 2013, 03:14:53 am »

It's very good. I would recommend JavaScript unless your scripts also need to automate other applications which only support platform-limited AppleScript (or VB or Windows). There are lots of sample scripts in Adobe's material and the documentation is very thorough. You can do all sorts of things, even displaying your own dialog boxes with options for your workflow.
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fnphoto

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Re: name of folder used in an action changes if renamed outside photoshop CC
« Reply #11 on: November 19, 2013, 09:15:05 am »

I just found out that you can run more than one a script like Image Processor Pro from an action. That will work since I use more than 10 folders with sub-folders.

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