/CreatingaPhotoShopDroplet

Creating a PhotoShop Droplet Droplets can be created for many purposes. This user guide is to be used when creating a desktop Droplet to convert photos for an upload to Pictopia photo galleries.

This step-by-step process will automate conversion to RGB, 200 dpi Jpegs.

1. Create a New Folder on your desktop by right clicking on your desktop and selecting the New Folder option. You can call it “Ready for Pictopia”. THIS IS A PERMANENT FOLDER AND MUST NOT BE MOVED OR PHOTOS WILL NOT AUTO LOAD!

2. Launch PhotoShop, and open a single photo.

3. Open the Actions palette and create a “New Action”. The “New Action” option looks like a page with one corner turned up, and it is found at the bottom of Actions palette.

Name the Action (i.e. Photo Conversion), and then hit Record.

4. Change the Image Mode to RGB

5. Change Image Size to 300 rpi (Resolution pixels/inch). Make sure the “Constrain Proportions� box near the bottom of the window is checked.

6. Click on Save As. Select the Ready for Pictopia folder that was just created on the desktop to save it to. This will bring up a window where you save it as a JPEG

Next, change the Format of the picture to a JPEG, and click “Save�.

A window will pop up asking which JPEG level the picture should be saved at.

Make sure that it is set at 10 or above, and then hit “OK�.

7. Close the file.

8. Click on the “Stop” button found on the Actions palette (the button is at the bottom of the Actions palette and looks like the ‘Stop’ button a tape recorder, the shape of a square).

9. Under the File menu, select Automate, and then Create Droplet

10. Choose the Destination to save the Droplet, which is your desktop, and name it Pictopia Droplet

11. Quit PhotoShop

Now, after each issue, all you have to do is collect the photos for that edition’s gallery into a folder, then drag/drop that folder onto the Pictopia Droplet. The script will do the rest, putting the converted jpegs into the Ready for Pictopia Folder on your desktop.

After the script has run, do the following: 1. Open the Ready for Pictopia folder.

2. Create a New Folder within that folder, giving it the name of the Gallery you want to see online (i.e. May 5 issue; May 5 Sports’ Back Bay Regatta…)

3. Drag and drop the converted pictures into the newly named Gallery folder.

4. Upload the Gallery folder using the usual Pictopia upload.