Clipping Aerial Photos in Photoshop Automated



Clipping Aerial Photos in Photoshop Automated

A. Introduction

Over the years, the Resource Mapping Section (RMS) of The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has acquired aerial imagery through contracts with various aerial survey companies. This imagery in the form of hard copy photographic film, including negatives, diapositives and contact prints. RMS is in charge of storage, maintenance, and management of this collection. RMS also manages the distribution and sales of various photographic products derived from this collection.

The Resource Aerial Photo Project involves the conversion of RMS’s resource aerial photography collection into a digital format. The RMS photo lab, using a digital camera mounted to a stationary arm, creates digital images. These images are then imported into Photoshop where they are cropped, resized, and saved in two resolutions (200 dpi, and 72 dpi).

Several Apple “Scripts” and Photoshop “Actions” have been written to automate these processes. Scripts are a series of commands written to a file. The user can “run” (or “play”) these programs instead of doing all of the commands manually. The following are the directions for processing the images using the new scripts. The script action code for theses scripts is attached to the end of this paper.

B. Overview

You will first need to set up your “desktop” (your workspace on the computer) and Photoshop for use of the scripts. Then you will import the scripts in Photoshop and use two scripts, one to convert the images to smaller (more manageable) files, and another script to estimate the name of the files. The images will then be manually cropped and saved. A Photoshop Action can be used to make the resolution change and an Apple Script can change the name prefix from m to s.

C. Setting up

1) Set up your desktop folders ahead of time. The General Action Photoshop Script uses the folders titled: Auto Temp 72, Auto Temp 200. I would also suggest having an in-progress and finished folder for each size. Finished images should be organized by dpi and roll at the very least. Now set up Photoshop…

2) Load the Aerial Photoshop folder on to your desktop.

3) Open Adobe Photoshop 5.0

4) Check file>preferences>Saving Files… All boxes should be checked except full size (Figure 1).

5) Make sure the windows you want are open. If not, go to window (on the tool bar) and select ‘show actions’. The Action window is the only window that you will need for clipping.

6) Check that the aerial photo actions are loaded and are correct. If not click on the menu button of the actions in the upper

right hand corner, select load actions (Figure 2: A)

Note: This is also were the button mode (figure 2: B and Figure 4: C) can be turned on and off, and where the actions can be edited. The toggle boxes next to the actions should be checked as in this picture. The toggle boxes mean that the actions will stop for input in the middle of an action. In regular mode, actions can be opened and looked at by clicking on the triangles. The first level is the file, the second the action, the third are steps of the action. See for example, the save in the picture above (Figure 2: Step). Check to see that all the saves are saving to the correct folder (important only for actions ‘m_to_s’ and ‘long sloppy’). If not you will need to create the folders specified or edit the action (See Editing Actions).

C. Importing and Cropping

1) Import your images:

Go to file>view>import>

KODAK DCS4XX/EOS.DCSX…

Select and unselect multiple images by holding down the shift key as you click the images. Click on acquire to import. Warning! You might need to adjust your memory settings for Photoshop to be able to import.

2) Once those are all loaded, play the ‘long sloppy crop 50’ action. This will automatically do a rough crop of up to 50 of your files and save them as top quality jpegs in a folder pre-specified (Auto Temp 200?) in the action. This will make them easier to access manage when manual cropping. You will not have to import them every time. There is a stop message at the beginning as a safety. The button will turn red. Hit it again to continue. The imports will be saved in the order they were imported. The first import # will be Untitled-1.jpg, the last frame # will be the last Untitled-#.jpg. You can use this to track back to the ‘Camera File/Frame #’. It’s good to make a few checks when your done with the CD to make sure your ‘Camera File/Frame #’ is correct. The color imports should be already in Mode>RGB Color and Mode>8 Bits/Channel (This is the System default).

3) Click out of Photoshop on to the desktop. Drag the folder with your sloppy cropped imports over the “smRt change” script droplet. It will ask you the flight and photo number of the first image imported and then it will name the rest after that consecutively. This will not name them all the correct name, you will need to check and change the name as you crop. You may also have to add zeros to the file name. You can also batch change their name using “rename batch” later in the same way (after you have typed the correct photo number in). See Extras for directions.

4) Manually crop your 200 dpi photos and save as m###_###.jpg (mediumFlight#_Exposure#.jpg). Select the Rectangular Marquee Tool (The select tool, letter A of Figure 4) and with your mouse frame the part of the aerial photo you want to keep. You will see a dashed line (figure 4: B).

Now you need to do the final cropping.

For your convenience, a crop action has been added to the actions panel. You can either click on this (Figure 4: C) or go to Image>crop. Another button added on is the save button. The save action is a toggled action so it will stop and ask what to save the file as. It is preset to a particular folder and to save as a jpeg at quality 5 and then

close. This button should only be used once per 200 dpi image or the quality will be reduced by half each time used.

Tilt is another toggled button that can be used to fix really crooked frames. It should not be needed in most cases, and should be used sparingly because it takes extra time. Select the aerial photo with about a half square buffer around it, click on tilt. At the corners of the selection the mouse arrow will turn into a curved double arrow, which can be used to turn the image. Play with it to get the hang of it. It can be undone in the history window.

5) No boxes should be checked. Hit OK and take a short coffee break. The batch command will open each item in the source folder perform the selected action and close the item. The ‘m_to_s’ action will change the width of the image to 9 inches and save it as a jpeg quality 5 under the same name as its source file. This is why it is important to have a destination file.

6) To change the M’s in the file names to S’s, click out of Photoshop and drop your file with your 72 dpi images over the “change file m to s” script.

7) Finish your paper filing sheet and put the finished image files in their done files.

Extra’s

The “rename batch” script can be used to correct the flight number or anything at the beginning of the name before he photo number. Type in the number of the spaces deleted. Then it will ask you for the text you would like to append to the file name. Warning! This could not be undone.

The adobe Photoshop plugins are also included on the CD, just in case Photoshop needs reinstalling.

Editing Actions

Sometimes you will need to fix an action or change it for the project that you are working on. Adobe Photoshop 5.0 has a very good help section under help>help contents. Go to the index and type in actions. Action Palette>using the Actions palette is a good place to start. It will tell you what all the buttons do. In most cases you will want to record a set of replacement steps within an existing action (for example saving in a particular folder) and erasing the old actions.

Note: The actions ‘sloppy crop 50’ and ‘directions*’ have reminders built in to them called stops.

Trouble Shooting

1) There is no Batch function.

Check that you are in Photoshop 5.0 and not LE

2) Batch function does not work due to a disk error.

Re-install Photoshop. There is a bug in Photoshop. If you try to import files using the batch function, it will work fine the first time. However when you try to use that batch function again a disk error will occur.

The Apple Scripts

SmRt change- Changes untitled to and estimated file name for m aerials

based on the starting file.

on open (myFolder)

set flightN to the text returned of (display dialog "Flight #:" default answer "000")

set photoN to the text returned of (display dialog "Photo #:" default answer "000")

m_to_s(myFolder as alias, flightN as integer, photoN)

end open

on m_to_s(myFolder, flightN, photoN)

tell application "Finder"

set myFolderContents to every file of myFolder

repeat with x in myFolderContents

if name of x starts with "Untitled-" then

set this_number to name of x as string

set n to the length of "Untitled-"

set this_number to ((character (n + 1) of this_number) & (character (n + 2) of this_number)) as integer

set Cnumber to (this_number - 1 + photoN)

set name of x to ("m" & flightN & "_" & Cnumber & ".jpg")

end if

end repeat

if number of folders in myFolder > 0 then

repeat with y in every folder of myFolder

m_to_s(y, flightN, photoN) of me

end repeat

end if

end tell

end m_to_s

Change m to s - Trim m from beginning add s

on open (myFolder)

m_to_s(myFolder as alias)

end open

on m_to_s(myFolder)

tell application "Finder"

set myFolderContents to every file of myFolder

repeat with x in myFolderContents

if name of x starts with "m" then

set this_text to name of x as string

set n to the length of "m"

set this_text to characters (n + 1) thru -1 of this_text as string

set name of x to ("s" & this_text)

end if

end repeat

if number of folders in myFolder > 0 then

repeat with y in every folder of myFolder

m_to_s(y) of me

end repeat

end if

end tell

end m_to_s

Rename_batch- removes characters and adds text

on open (myFolder)

display dialog "Remove how many characters?:" buttons {"1", "4", "Cancel"} default button "Cancel"

set old to the button returned of the result

set new to the text returned of (display dialog "Add Prefix:" default answer "s")

m_to_s(myFolder as alias, old as integer, new)

end open

on m_to_s(myFolder, old, new)

tell application "Finder"

set myFolderContents to every file of myFolder

repeat with x in myFolderContents

set this_text to name of x as string

set this_text to characters (old + 1) thru -1 of this_text as string

set name of x to (new & this_text)

end repeat

if number of folders in myFolder > 0 then

repeat with y in every folder of myFolder

m_to_s(y, old, new) of me

end repeat

end if

end tell

end m_to_s

Append File Name- adds text prefix

on open (myFolder)

set myPrefix to text returned of (display dialog "File begins with:" default answer "s")

AppendPrefix(myFolder as alias, myPrefix)

end open

on AppendPrefix(myFolder, myPrefix)

tell application "Finder"

set myFolderContents to every file of myFolder

repeat with x in myFolderContents

if name of x does not start with myPrefix then

try

set name of x to (myPrefix & name of x)

end try

end if

end repeat

if number of folders in myFolder > 0 then

repeat with y in every folder of myFolder

AppendPrefix(y, myPrefix) of me

end repeat

end if

end tell

end AppendPrefix

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Figure 1: Saving Preferences

Figure 2: Action Window

A

B

Action

Step

Figure 3: Importing

Figure 4: Clipping and Button Mode

A

B

Figure 5: Batching in Photoshop

C

Desktop

Toggle Box

5) Create the 72 dpi images via batch command. Go to File>Automate>Batch… The batch menu will come up (figure 5). In the play menu choose the ‘m_to_ s’ action. In the source box choose folder and click on choose to designate your 200 dpi folder. In the destination folder make sure it says folder and the right destination folder is designated (Auto Temp 72?).

Figure 5: Batching in Photoshop.

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