Photoshop Droplets

A little history. I used to work prepress at a printshop and in that environment you take any job whether it is Quark, InDesign, Pagemaker, etc. and print out a post script file that goes to a hot folder and off to a workflow production program such as Trueflow. The post script runs through a series of necessary commands and Trueflow gives you the perfect PDF for digital plate making.

So one day I wondered if I could create a folder on a Mac (like a Windows hot folder) that would run certain applescript commands (in this case in Photoshop) and have it perform actions that would render what I needed. In this case because I worked with hundreds of photographer photos that were 72 dpi, RGB, jpegs and wanted them made into 300 dpi, CMYK, tiffs. I studied applescript and eventually stumbled across something built into Photoshop called Droplets. No these do not make things look like they have water droplets on them. They are desktop based links to Photoshop Actions that you can drop a file onto and even if Photoshop is closed it will open Photoshop and run the Action commands linked to the Droplet.

This is an amazing feature and has been in Photoshop for years but almost no one knows about it. So I give you a PDF Trick-of-the-Trade for Photoshop Droplets (aka Lo And Behold I Am A God Amongst Men) ehm, the joke being that now you can get the computer to do a lot of this mindless repetitive work for you as you go for a "paid" break.

Enjoy!

How to create Photoshop Droplets PDF

Come back and visit from time-to-time as I post more Tricks-of-the-Trade!