I have a greyscale image with some transparent sections too. I would like to recolour this within excel (based on the value that a user types in a cell or something)
Manually, all I need to do is select the picture then in the ribbon 🡒 format 🡒 colour 🡒 more variations 🡒 more colours and select appropriately. I've tried the macro recorder on these steps but get nothing useful.
Searching the web has led me to believe that the Shape.PictureFormat.Recolor method, which I'm guessing is what I want, is only availible in Publisher. I'd rather not interface with thatfor portability reasons (in case publisher isn't installed), and I'd also like this to run as speedily as possible.
I've even considered converting the image to an array of bytes, performing the required pixel manipulations then converting back to an image, but I think that'll be slow. I also don't have a clue how.
Is there a method in VBA to recolour an image in this way, leaving alpha as it is? Perhaps with the use of an ActiveX image control? Here's an example image in case it's not clear
White 🡒 Green
Black 🡒 Black
Alpha 🡒 Alpha
If you can't find a pure object model based solution, you can try to modify the document xml. It is not the easiest of solutions, but it is far easier than pixel manipulation.
Do like this:
Save your workbook without modification
Do the color change
Save the file again, with a different file name
Unzip the two *.xlsx files you created
Analyze the differences. You'll most likely find it in the drawings folder
Recreate the changes in the xml of the second file in the first one and zip it back together. If that works, you now have a theoretical way to the solution.
If you get this to work, you can automate these steps.
Related
This is my first question here, I tried to search for something like this, but couldn't find much.
So, I got about 200 old PSDS that have an outdated version of some images (Blurry and in low resolution), but they have text layers, and some retouching layers. And I managed to scan and get way better quality images, but I need to paste them one by one into the PSDS so I can align them and recycle the text and retouching layers, so I was wondering if there's a way to sorta automate the image copy-paste.
The file names are something like this:
old_psd_0001.psd, old_psd_0002.psd, old_psd_0003.psd...
new_png_0001.png, new_png_0002.png, new_png_0003.png...
I'm trying to do a copy pasting image script, all the other aligning and cropping work is automated with actions.
Thanks to anyone able to help.
I have scanned images with alpha channel that I need to compress. The images are drawings. Unfortunately their creation process creates random variation in color that compress poorly in PNG or even cause negative compression.
If I run filters over the data, I wipe out the text.
If I could split out all the pixels that are approximately a specific color into a separate layer, I could run filters without affecting the text.
There are four distinct colors I would like to split out.
The source image is indexed so there are not a lot of variation that needs to be split out.
Is this possible in Photoshop? If so, how?
-=-=-=-
I have not seen the format for a human readable color table. That would make things a lot easier. I have created some within photoshop and it is a PITA.
I was thinking about doing this manually at first then possibly automating it.
I have tried the magic want toll but I cannot get it to distinguish colors well. For example, I have purples and black. To get the thing to select all the purples, it grabs the blacks as well.
You can Scan image with Photoshop File > Import > WIA Support select your printer/Scanner and then scan your picture its come in actual color which you want and then you can compress its not distort your color
The best thing I could come up with was MAGIC WAND and disable the continuous setting.
Cut and Paste Special to a new layer.
I would preferred to select Polygon lasso or Magnetic lasso tool to select specific area.
Otherwise you select the command Select | Color Range and Select color with eyedropper tool
Best way to select all of a certain colour is to go to Select>Color Range
then select white with the eyedropper tool, this way it selects everything with the white value more accurately than manually with he magic tool, it gets all the little things you may miss. then use that to cut/paste into a new layer with ctrl+shift+v to put paste it in place :)
What I am ultimately trying to do is to create a grid of images for print that are minor variations of the same thing (different text is all). Looking through online resources I was able to create a script that changes the text and exports all of the images necessary (several hundred). What I am trying to do now is to import all of these images into a new photoshop document and lay them all out in a grid and I can't seem to find any examples of this.
Can anyone point me in the right direction to place a file at a specific coordinate (I'm using CS5 and have the design suite so if there is a way in illustrator to do this quickly...)?
Also, I'm open to other ideas on how to do this (even other programs) easily. It's for labels so the positioning on the sheet has to be pretty precise...
The art layer object has a translate() method that takes delta x and y params. You'll need to open each image, copy it to the target document, get its current location (using artLayer.bounds) and do the math to find the deltas to position it where you want it. Your deltas can be in pixels so you'll get plenty of precision.
Check out your 'JavaScript Scripting Reference' pdf in your Adobe install directory for more details.
Ok I'm marking Anna's response as the answer because though I didn't fully test it, it seems like it should work and answers the original question with jsx. However I'm also leaving my final solution in case anyone else runs across this with the same issue and may prefer this method as well.
What I ended up doing instead is using InDesign. I figured out that it has a grid option that lets you import a number of files and place them all in an equal grid in a single command. This is almost exactly what I was looking for, except that it leaves a small border/margin in between the columns and grids and mine were designed to meet exactly.
I couldn't figure out how to make it not have the border (I have very little experience with InDesign, it may be possible). However I was able to select all my images and scale them uniformly to be the correct size, then I just selected each column and dragged it over to snap to the adjacent column and the same with rows...
I am creating an image map using ImageMapster from here.
I have created a photoshop image with several images that I have cut out from the original photographs. Each image is on a separate layer.
Now, I need to get the path coordinates of each object, and I don't want to hover over every corner and manually write down each coordinate.
Is there an automated way to get this path?
Maybe there is some application or web service whence I can send my image and get the path in return?
I have tried exporting each layer separately and then importing them into illustrator and vectorizing the shape (it keeps the shape in its original position), but I can't figure out how to get the coordinate path as text. I can export it to svg, but that isn't the same simple code needed for the css image map.
Ah! After googling image-map, much thanks to Sven for the idea (he got my +1), I found this thread here on Stack Overflow.
So here is my process.
Prepare the image in Photoshop with each object on a separate layer with a transparent background (this will make it easy for you when you do the tracing).
Save your photoshop file.
Open the Photoshop file in Illustrator using File...Open (works in CS4 and CS5) and make sure to allow the option to import Photoshop's layers as separate objects. After you open the file, make sure NOT to move any of the objects around - you need them to be in the exact same place as they were in the photoshop file so they can superimpose each other when rendered to the imagemap.
Use the Live Trace with custom settings. Use the black & white mode with the threshold all the up (255). This will produce a black silhouette of the shape. (You can also use "ignore white"). Push the Trace button. If you have many layers, you can save this new tracing pattern as a preset - I called mine, Silhouette. Now, I just click on a layer and choose Silhouette from the tracing buttons' dropdown menu.
Expand the shape and make sure it consists of only a single flat shape:
you can use the blob brush in illustrator to blacken over any unwanted white areas
no groups
no compound shapes (or it won't work) - which means you can't create cutouts.
You can tell the shapes are right when you click on them - you should be able to see the path itself with no "other" shapes involved (perhaps the blob brush additions) - just a single path. An easy method is this:
select the shape
ungroup if necessary
release compound path
unite (shape mode merges all shapes into one)
Don't crop your image - you want your shape to be in the same place in the image's area as in your original photoshop image.
Don't join all the shapes together, either.
The shapes should all be individual whole shapes, all in their original locations, each on a separate layer.
Now, open Illustrator's Attributes panel, and make sure to "show options".
Select your shape and in the "Attributes" panel, switch the "Image Map" combo box from None to Polygon. Make sure to add a url (it doesn't matter what you put; you can change it later - I just put "#" and the name of the shape so I can tell which one it belongs to in the image map code)
Do this for each of the objects.
Now, in the File menu, go to "Save for Web and Devices". Skip all the settings here and just push "Save".
In the "Save As" (the title of the window is "Save Optimized As") dialogue box, use "Save As type:" and select HTML Only(*.html) if you just want the code, or HTML and Images if you want the sillouhuette, too (they will appear in a folder called "images") - and note your save location.
Now go open that html file in notepad!
Voila! All the shapes will be rendered for you as a pre-made image-map - points path and even html code. Here is what it looks like when you open in notepad the html file you just created: For this demo, I chose a particularly complicated image - one which you would never want to estimate by hand, nor have to do twice!
Don't forget to place the actual image file somewhere in your site's images folder. You can save the psd file for later and add more "stuff" if you want, and repeat the process.
I was able to create the image map this way for my photoshop picture in just a brief couple of minutes. After you do it once, it gets easier for next time.
This has been bugging me for so long and I don't have Illustrator to be able to use the solution proposed by BGM, that I created my own Photoshop addon.
You can get it here: https://creative.adobe.com/addons/products/2389
It writes all your paths' points' coordinates to a text file.
Should work for CS6 and above.
The way I use it is I create a marquee, right click -> make work path, rename my path, [repeat], then just export coords via my addon.
If anyone's interested in the scripts behind it, you can have a look here: http://pastebin.com/8ugcAV3j
In case you make any improvements, please post them here so that other people may use them as well.
Hope this helps someone.
EDIT: added link to source script (was only in comments before)
I used this to find the co-ordinates of the outline of a shape to make image hotspots for links in dreamweaver. If you have something else in mind, then you'll have to ignore some of it. This works on a single layer so you may want to make a "flattened copy first", but I don't see why it wouldn't work on a multi layered image.
Use wand to highlight area you want. This will be different for different images.
Right click and hit Make Work Path. Use a suitable tollerance which is found by trial and error. I just use the most sensitive.
Do this for all areas in all of your images creating separate paths for each.
Click edit then export paths to illustrator and save file in sensible place.
Open the saved file in word. Ignore the bumf the the top and use replace to remove ALL LETTERS. Don’t worry about the paragraph characters.
Note that all of the work paths are exported in the same file separated by a blank line so must copied and pasted separately to be used for each hotspot.
After inserting your image. Start making a map in dreamweaver with a couple of co-ordinates then simply replace these in the with information from the illustrator file for each of the map areas to be produced.
I add my updated answer I had to find since adobe has eliminated HTML output in many instances, I work mostly with photoshop (CS4) and this is a perfect solution:
1) download following file: https://github.com/andyhawkes/ps-paths-to-imagemap
2) open your image in photoshop and select the form with the magic wand
3) right click and select 'make work path' (the lesser the px, to more accurate)
4) go to File -> Scripts -> Browse ... and select the script from the first step
that's it !! this script will open your texteditor with the coordinates ...
Something like this may be useful;
http://code.google.com/p/imagemap/
Copy your image into position, then plot.
creating an image map is really simple.
First we need to look at the syntax of the code
Let's create a div.If we want to position it at the right side of our page,we can just begin by writing
<div align="right">
After that, we import the image that we are gonna map.
<img src="" alt="" width="" height="" usemap="#nameofmap" />
Now we have to define the map structure.First lets assume that you want a rectangular portion of an image to act like a hyperlink.
<map name="nameofmap">
<area href="wherever I wanna take that.com" alt="" title=""
shape=rect coords="A,B,C,D"></map>
Now we close the div.
</div>
If the shape is circular,we use the syntax
shape=circle coords="x,y,radius"
If shape is polygonal, we use
**shape=poly coords="a,b,c,d,e,f,gh"
Now comes the big part:How to find the image map coords.
Very simple.Go to
http://www.image-maps.com
Browse your image file,click "Start Mapping your image",then you proceed, and then on the next page,click "Import Old mapping Code" on the right.then you get the coords.
After that, you can use FIREBUG to change the coords according to your specifications,because image-maps only hyperlinks the whole image,so use firebug to change the coords and adjust according to your requirements.
Have fun.
I'd like to extract all of the information (formatted text, images, etc) from powerpoint slides into a flowing, readable (MS Word-style) format.
I'm not interested in keeping the slide concept at all--think of taking class slides from a college course and batch converting them all into one collective study guide.
I can't find a way to do this within powerpoint (though if you know of one, please share!) and,
I don't have experience scripting Office apps. Is this kind of thing easily done? Does this kind of script already exist somewhere?
Clarification:
In an earlier version of this post, I used the word "flowing" to refer to a slide-free (MS Word-like) format. This does not, however, refer to the actual formatting of slide content. So keeping bullet lists, etc. is fine and even desirable.
I don't see this being a simple task. College professors use a format of either "TITLE: BULLET POINTS OR IMAGE" or "EVERY WORD I'M ABOUT TO SAY" for their slides in my experience, and you're just not going to get flowing, readable text from the former no matter what you do. For the latter, you've already got your text, you just have to copy it to another document.
I think you might as well just open the PowerPoint, select all the text, and copy+paste into Word/Publisher/InDesign/your favorite page layout program. You'll have the same effect and the same amount of editing after the fact except without all the hassle of writing a program to do it for you.
Doing a Print operation to a PDF with the N-up options might be a good solution for handouts if that's all you need. You could expand the idea and condense ALL the slide decks into one, get it printed (with N slides per page and the note space next to it) and bound, and voila, instant study guide. I've seen that, and then you get options for note taking.
More power to you if you're doing this just because you can - don't let me stop you. There is much good learning to be had that way. You might want to look into writing a program using the Microsoft.Office.Interop namespace in .NET (starting at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb772069.aspx ), or perhaps look on CPAN ( http://search.cpan.org/search?mode=all&query=powerpoint ) and do it with Perl! There are lots of ways to do it, but you've got to be up for the challenge.
Text is fairly simple to extract, but what text do you want? The text from the title and body text placeholders only? File, Save As, and choose to save the outline.
The other text on the slide? That can be pulled out to a text file programmatically, but in what order? Suppose you have a complex diagram with text callouts. Extracting the text is going to give you gibberish. There's no obvious/meaningful order to the text other than what the human viewer supplies by noting that "Ah. The arrow next to this bit of text points to the fribulator sub-assembly, so must relate to it in some way." Try doing that in code. ;-)
You could give the author a way to sort the text into reading order so that the code knows what order to extract it in, but that would require a fair amount of work on the part of the author.
If you can be certain that all of the content is in title+bullet form, no worries. Otherwise, you'd have to be able to articulate exactly what you want extracted, in what form and in what order before you could get anywhere with this.
MS Word-style is not only readable, but writeable as well (which was not specified in your requirements). If you want a read-only guide, PDF is your natural choice (either through Acrobat Distiller or LibreOffice). Combine individual Acrobatted presentations with PDFtk, or Acrobat or Foxit and you're good to go without any programming at all.
"Is this kind of thing easily done?" - Yes, your humble servant did a couple of similar scripts ages ago (extracting enhanced metafiles from Powerpoint slides).
"Does this kind of script already exist somewhere?" - Yes. Probably at hundreds of places, but not sure if any of them get posted to the 'Net. All things considered think you'd be better off learning some scripting and macro programming on your own, since a ready-made script may be not quite fit for your needs - and to understand and rewrite it you'd need more time than to code & debug from scratch.
Since you mention that title+bullet form is ok, open the file, choose to save as and pick Outline as the save-as type.
I think you could parse through the PowerPoint file for formatting, text and pictures. There are Visual Studio namespaces available for such a task. You open the file, parse through it and make Word file from these. Complicated work, as you would have to consider type of elements and their position, you would have to use a temporary structure for each slide.
Have a look at this sample code :
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/gg278331.aspx
How to: Get All the Text in All Slides in a Presentation
Basically, using c# and openXML SDK 2.0, it loops through all the slides in the presentation, and then adds each text in every slide into a string builder. You can write out the result into a text file if you like (modification required).
Recommendation: <25 oct 2012>
For your study guide, maybe you could extract all the text in each slide, and dump those text programmatically (by adding that function into the sample code above while it's iterating the slides) into the "Notes" section of each slide. With that, you can print it in Notes Page view. You'll get the entire slide image at the top half of the page, and the actual slide texts at the bottom of it in the Notes Page view. It sure beats trying to copy and paste all the text from the slide into the notes section. You can even print it 2 slides per page, as small text would not be an issue inside the slide's image, and diagrams would still be visible more or less.
Unfortunatly, this method works for simple standard slide format ... meaning, it's OK if your slides just have a title, and a center text box with all the bullet points... any complex slide layout (maybe text boxes scattered everywhere) will come out in non-order and will be confusing. But at least you can still look at the slide image above to make sense of it :)