Auto merge files into 1 psd?

[squeakybadger]

Hi guys,

I'm trying to automate my ps workflow a bit, and I would like to get all render elements merged into one file, rather than me opening then all up separately and moving into one main file.

Photomerge does something like I want, but preferably I would like a droplet or something to drag a folder onto, which in turn creates a master psd.

We render out as tiffs, and I don't really want to go the exr route with them all in one massive image file.

Any ideas?


Thanks

-jaime

[joconnell]

Do a search on the forum - shimazake has written a photoshop action to do just this.

[thablanch]

You can create yourself an Photoshop Action that could do this for you..
Starting by File > Scripts > Load files into stack.. loads all the selected files in one photoshop file.
After, you could record your actions to change passes positions, blending modes and stuff like that.

[dans]

You can use psd-manager (commercial) to get a customized PSD besides your TIF output straight from 3sd Max.
Also can do V-Ray specific stuff like splitting your MultiMattes into separate layers or channels.

Daniel

[simmsimaging]

I can highly recommend PSD Manager - it's a massive timesaver for file organization like you after, but it also makes creating masks/object alphas etc *way* faster and easier. However, it will give you all that in one file - which you said you want to avoid via exr so maybe it won't be what you want. Anyway, thablanch's suggestion would work just fine too, but you'd have to maintain pass name and order consistency for the action to adjust your blending modes etc - not sure how well that would hold up from job to job.

[squeakybadger]

Using the above suggestions, I have managed to speed up the whole importing/stripping channels of all the elements into a single psd considerably, but it is still a 2 step process (better than 10+ anyway!)

Loading files into the stack has been the most helpful so far (thanks theblanch!), but as Brett says, you have to have the passes the same in each file to automate, which is near impossible on some of our jobs.

I will have to have a look at psd manager again, haven't used it since ~2007. Does anyone know if it can export a comp to after effects like a psd?

Thanks

[dans]

Does anyone know if it can export a comp to after effects like a psd?
Thanks

You simply import the PSD sequence as a comp into After Effects.

Daniel

[trick]

Recommending PSD-manager too !!! Saving you precious time where no faster hardware can help you All you have to do is make a startup file where PSD-manager is loaded by default and you never have to look at it again

BTW, Daniel: would it be possible to generate a PSD without saving all the seperate MultiMatte renderelements coming from VRay ??

[dans]

Recommending PSD-manager too !!! Saving you precious time where no faster hardware can help you All you have to do is make a startup file where PSD-manager is loaded by default and you never have to look at it again

BTW, Daniel: would it be possible to generate a PSD without saving all the seperate MultiMatte renderelements coming from VRay ??

Thanks for the praise. You can turn off the output of any MultiMatte element in the Render Elements Output rollout in psd-manager, just untick the checkbox. If what you mean is you don't want it to output each element as separate layers then untick the "Split into Multiple" option. (You can also start a new thread or PM if you wanted something else, I don't want to abuse Jaimes thread.)