Scripting / Actions with Illustrator or Photoshop

[Ice2Cool]

Hi there,

Please excuse my ignorance as I do not know anything about adobe illustrator or photoshop and my DTP operator knows nothing about scripting so i thought it bes tto post this in the developement section.

Also excuse the long post:

To give you some background - we are a printing comany and need to do Desktop Publishing on illustrator or photoshop to process an image into 4 layers - C, M, Y and K in order to make plates for the printing process.

We will be receiving a job which has 1600 variants. we receive a PDF for each variant from our customer and process it for printing. However, in this case if we were to do one variant on a plate, this would mean having to process 1600 images and 1600 x 4 plates - which is massively time consuming for both DTP and Plate making. So, in order to reduce this processing time, we are batching the images up 4 on a plate. So the DTP operator now needs to look through an excel file, find which 4 images are grouped together, look up those file names in a folder and then batch them into photoshop or illustrator and then step the image into the 4 process colours.

I would like to automate this process. We have the excel file with the mappings on which filenames are grouped together - i just need help on how to script this. Our dtp operators use macs, so the scripting language has to be Apple Script or Java Script. I know VBA extremely well, but that is only available on windows versions of illustrator and photoshop which we do not have.

Im hoping someone here has some knowledge of scripting for illustrator or photoshop (preferably illustrator) - if so can u point me in the right direction?

Basically, the process involces importing 4 files and placing them 2 across and 2 down to make a grid of 4.

 

[murraybiscuit]

Not clear on what you want. Are these 'variants' images or layouts with pagination? I'm assuming you can't do what you need to do through the photoshop actions palette?

 

[Murdoc]

Omg plates :O
Rather outsource for digital print, they can automate that process with their ripping software afaik

But correct me if im wrong and you need these scripts to refer to excel data and process the files accordingly?
Also what are you printing? what are the variants, names ? pics

 

[Ice2Cool]

Not clear on what you want. Are these 'variants' images or layouts with pagination? I'm assuming you can't do what you need to do through the photoshop actions palette?

Sorry for not being clear - yes these variants are images - theyre open PDF's to be exact. Its a bit complicated to do through action palettes as I need to specify exactly which images need to be batched together.

 

[Ice2Cool]

Omg plates :O
Rather outsource for digital print, they can automate that process with their ripping software afaik

But correct me if im wrong and you need these scripts to refer to excel data and process the files accordingly?
Also what are you printing? what are the variants, names ? pics

We have several digital printing presses. We cannot do it digitally due to a security watermark which is added with a special uv ink which can only be done via the litho process. Unfortunately i cannot post the original pics as it is a high security job. Oh and offset quality is superior to digital =)

 

[Fudzy]

It's so troglodyte though.

If you can record what you want done as an action you can apply the action to a folder in batch mode.

The only problem you might have is if the images are different sizes.

 

[Ice2Cool]

It's so troglodyte though.

If you can record what you want done as an action you can apply the action to a folder in batch mode.

The only problem you might have is if the images are different sizes.

Sizes as in dimension? Yes the files are different dimensions - the dimensions are specified in the file name. Technically it shouldnt matter if i can specificy the positioning of the top left corner of each image.

 

[DCS]

Hey whats up Ice2Cool? We have done similar things here at our print shop, so maybe can help... Just one question for now - does the entire picture change with each variant or would you not get away with just remaking the black plate?

 

[Fudzy]

Sizes as in dimension? Yes the files are different dimensions - the dimensions are specified in the file name. Technically it shouldnt matter if i can specificy the positioning of the top left corner of each image.

Well that's where it would get tricky with recording actions if the total size of each plate is meant to be exactly the same.

 

[Ice2Cool]

Hey whats up Ice2Cool? We have done similar things here at our print shop, so maybe can help... Just one question for now - does the entire picture change with each variant or would you not get away with just remaking the black plate?

Hey DCS - the entire image changes - all 4 process colours. Have you done something similar using scripts etc?

 

[Murdoc]

Yes offset quality is superior to digital but if it wasnt for the watermark -

you could set up a master file , that has a variable data field for each item needed to make up the print(name, pic) and then use an excel and file links to the variable field which make up the security card or what ever it is you are printing.

I know this is done in versaworks on a roland digital
But if this has to be done litho i feel sorry for the dtp who file probally need to layout this all out. Them batch action.
Dunno if im on the same page but i thought i would share from what i understand

 

[DCS]

Hey DCS - the entire image changes - all 4 process colours. Have you done something similar using scripts etc?

Not with scripts. Our workflow is a mixture of Trueflow/Nexus and within this workflow there are many options to automate, though saying that the fact that you need to get the filenames to group together from an excell file really ****s things up... Do you really have to follow the excel list on how to batch the images? Are the printed sheets not going to get cup up anyway so dont see why that should be too important.

Was also wondering if you are imposing your plate's in photoshop/illustrator? Dont you have a imposition program there to do this?

 

[Ice2Cool]

Yes offset quality is superior to digital but if it wasnt for the watermark -

you could set up a master file , that has a variable data field for each item needed to make up the print(name, pic) and then use an excel and file links to the variable field which make up the security card or what ever it is you are printing.

I know this is done in versaworks on a roland digital
But if this has to be done litho i feel sorry for the dtp who file probally need to layout this all out. Them batch action.
Dunno if im on the same page but i thought i would share from what i understand

Youre exactly on the right page - infact i was thinking the same thing as you and wanted to do this job digitally until we realized we couldnt do the watermark :/

 

[Ice2Cool]

Not with scripts. Our workflow is a mixture of Trueflow/Nexus and within this workflow there are many options to automate, though saying that the fact that you need to get the filenames to group together from an excell file really ****s things up... Do you really have to follow the excel list on how to batch the images? Are the printed sheets not going to get cup up anyway so dont see why that should be too important.

Was also wondering if you are imposing your plate's in photoshop/illustrator? Dont you have a imposition program there to do this?

Yeah - the reason excel comes into play is that the customer needs a different quantitiy of each variant/image. Weve batched together those variants where the quantities are the closest together in order to minimize overs and wastage hence the need to specify which files get grouped together.

 

[Ice2Cool]

Not with scripts. Our workflow is a mixture of Trueflow/Nexus and within this workflow there are many options to automate, though saying that the fact that you need to get the filenames to group together from an excell file really ****s things up... Do you really have to follow the excel list on how to batch the images? Are the printed sheets not going to get cup up anyway so dont see why that should be too important.

Was also wondering if you are imposing your plate's in photoshop/illustrator? Dont you have a imposition program there to do this?

Oh forgot about ure second question - im not too clued up on the whole plate making process - what do you mean by imposing? Do you mean stepping up the image into its process and spot colours? I believe we are using illustrator, photoshop and pandora.