In Chapter 1 of my Adobe Photoshop CS3 for Photographers book, I provided a brief example of how one might apply the Lens Blur filter to a Smart Object in Photoshop CS3 and keep the background blur settings editable. However, it was pointed out to me just recently that the Lens Blur filter is actually disabled in CS3 when you seek to apply it to a Smart Object. This is one of those things that I failed to notice as I was finalizing the book and it seems that I am not the only author who got caught out by this late change to the program. Fortunately there is an easy remedy for accessing Lens Blur as a Smart Filter.

Ok all you scripting geeks, get ready…back by popular demand and with an additional session, Jeff Tranberry, Photoshop QE engineer and all around script maven will be doing two Photoshop Scripting Sessions at Photoshop World Las Vegas.

The Digital Outback Photo web site has released a free Photoshop Batch processor: XBatch

XBatch is simple to use and produces batch operations like Image Processor in Photoshop CS2 but maintains the folder hierarchy of the original folder of images.

Trevor Morris, who runs the GFX web site has uploaded a bunch of new Photoshop scripts including a beta to a new Black & White Variations script.

• Hide All Layers – set the visibility of all layers to off (invisible)
• Show All Layers – set the visibility of all layers to on (visible)
• Search For Layers – searches for layers by name and selects the first match
• Sort Layers – sorts all layers in the active document alphanumerically (from top to bottom)

Be sure to check out his Photoshop Tutorials while you’re there.

Into scripting?

PS-Scripts is a community resource site for Photoshop scripting and Photoshop automation.

Do you spend too much time doing repetitive production tasks such as placing and replacing images, resizing them, dragging them from one document to another, and preparing images for printing instead of being creative? Do you use Adobe Photoshop CS2 and have some experience with scripting? You’re in luck.

Since Adobe Creative Suite 2 was created with built-in support for scripting, virtually every repetitive or time-consuming task that creative professionals have to do in the Adobe Creative Suite can be streamlined with the help of a script.

In cooperation with PixelGenius, PhotoshopNews is pleased to announce the availability of a new Adobe Bridge script to put PhotoshopNews.com inside of Bridge. Yes, right inside of Bridge!

There is an issue when running the Batch automate function from within Bridge, where actions that contain calls to scripts will fail.

Source: Microsoft Pro Photo Home

Creating actions in Adobe Photoshop allows you to automate repetitive tasks to improve efficiency and consistency in your digital workflow.

At Adobe Studio Exchange, there is a new script written for Adobe Bridge, available for downloading:
Import Camera.

PhotoshopNews reader, Larry, wrote in and said:
“I’m looking for any information about the updates to the JavaScript scripting in Photoshop CS2. I can’t seem to find anyone who knows anything about new User Interface functions for JavaScript scripting.”

This is a test. . .it’s only a test. . .
If, this were a real emergancy, you would be out of luck!

Actually, this is just a placeholder to make sure all the content categories show.

You can quit reading now. . .

Seriously, YOU CAN QUIT READING NOW!