Action Won't Run On Certain Files

[joedevico]

Hello All,

I'm hoping that someone here can help. I have an action that I've created that creates mats for my images for web presentation. It's been working flawlessly for a few months now. Yesterday, a photographer sent me some images (.JPG) so that I could "virtual mat" them for him.

For some reason - the action will not run on his files - I'm not sure where in the action it's going wrong, but about halfway through I get an error message (the error occurs because the selection is incorrect so it can't finish the action). Has anyone ever experienced a similar thing in which an action would not run properly due to a file setting.

Here is a sample of what the mats look like (on my images) and one of images that will not work. I've tried changing the bit-depth, color profile, even copying the image into a new file - all with the same results - very strange. Thanks for any help you can give me.

[BryanHansel]

I'd have to see the action to see exactly what you're doing with it, but my guess is that the image that doesn't work, doesn't work because the length width ratio is different than your normal images.  You might have to change your action to work with %s when resizing.  Just a guess.

Does your action automatically select a mat color or do you have to sample the color during the creation of the mat?

Sorry, another edit:  Can your action do one of those museum mats where the picture is mounted higher and more space is left at the bottom?

[joedevico]

Bryan,

Thanks for the reply - I don't think it's the image size as I have the first dialog box allowing you to choose the mat size based on a canvas extension. I've used the action on many different sized images and odd dimensiona ratios. None of his images will work and upon further investigation neither will any on my images that have (RGB/8#) in the title bar of the image. Only those with (RGB/8) minus the "#" sign. I guess I need to know what this is.

As for the mat color - the default is an off white color - you can then change the color overlay in the layer properties to any color you like - I use the color picker to select a color from the image. Currently the mat is set to be centered - however it would be an easy adjustment to make offset mats as well. Just an extra step in the action. If I can get it working properly, I'd be happy to let you mess around with it.

joe

[joedevico]

I've fixed the problem - apparently the selections in the action became corrupt and they were selecting the wrong area of the image. Now I still have a minor problem - the pattern overlay will not stick - it chooses the correct pattern, size and opacity, but does not enable the pattern even though if you look at the action it says "With enabled"

Any thoughts -

joe

[BryanHansel]

If the action has been corrupted, it may well be corrected in the pattern overlay section.  You may want to just delete it from the action, redo it, and then drag it back into your action.  

I've had a few actions that I've used for months end up not working for whatever reason before, and I had to redo them again.  I wish I'd remember to back up my actions more often.

[joedevico]

Just an update -

It seems that it may have something to do with the unique ID that Photoshop assigns the actual pattern. I've been hunting through the Adobe forums and have had some good suggestions, now to see if they work.

I downloaded a couple free actions that create nice looking mats to see how they work and they all used the texturizer filter instead of doing a pattern overlay. Maybe now I know why...

[joedevico]

I've nailed the problem - apparently I need to save the "already preset" pattern as a "new preset" and then it will work. I can't say why I need to, but it works...

I'm not sure if it will run on other machines, but I'll give it a whirl on my laptop just to see. Now I can spend time tweaking it.

Thanks for the input!