Action Text Problem & How to Report a Bug in Photoshop CS?

BL
Posted By
Brian_L_Zimmerman
Jul 6, 2004
Views
293
Replies
5
Status
Closed
I can’t seem to find any links for reporting bugs in Photoshop CS, except for the telephone technical support which states that a credit card is required before discussing the problem.
The problem I am having with Photoshop CS is that when I record a simple action to type text onto an image and then try to play the action on another file, it creates a blob that appears to be all of the letters of the text superimposed in one spot instead of typed out left to right. Does anyone know of a solution to this problem or how to report it without risk of paying for the "privilege"?
Thanks.

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RK
Rob_Keijzer
Jul 6, 2004
Brian,

I don’t know much about actions, but maybe every character is regarded as a new type. Is every character on a seperate layer?

It looks to me that after the first character is typed, the action "finalises" the type and starts a new type with the the second character, and so on, thus creating type layer after type layer.

Also, that would explain why all characters are on top of each other.

Not much of a help, but maybe this puts some minds on the right track.

Rob
BL
Brian_L_Zimmerman
Jul 6, 2004
That’s a good description of the how the problem appears. But when I recorded the action, I simply clicked on the text type tool, clicked at a spot on the image and started typing, which created a single text layer, then I flattened the image, then stopped recording. It replays fine in one file, but not in another, and does create a single text layer, even though the characters are all superimposed. Very strange.
GH
Grass_Hopper
Jul 6, 2004
Brian,
what if you eliminated the "flatten" step? What does that do for the playing of the action from one file to another?

Also, remember, when you flatten (rasterize) the text, you will lose the vector characteristics and be unable to later edit that text.
BL
Brian_L_Zimmerman
Jul 7, 2004
I tried that and it makes no difference, but if I wanted to maintain the layer, I could simply uncheck that step in the recorded action to keep the layer.
In any case, I have found a workaround to this PS bug. Instead of simply typing a text layer, I created a custom shape from the text and used the Custom Shape Tool to insert the text. I first convert the text to a custom shape and then record the action while shift-dragging the shape onto the image using the Custom Shape Tool. The recording includes first setting the preferences – unit& rulers to "pixel" to keep the size constant (instead of proportional to image resolution/ppi), and resetting back to "inches" at the end of the recording.
To convert the text to a custom shape, you type large white text on a black background (like filling a 3"x1" document at 300ppi), then…
Layer -> Type -> Create Work Path
Edit -> Define Custom Shape, and give it a name such as "Copyright" Then you can use the shape tool during recording and modify the shape mask layer with drop shadow and embossing, etc.
Now everything works. I was able to batch process a group of edited images, and automatically resize, sharpen, watermark and save as jpg with a new name to a new folder.
DM
dave_milbut
Jul 7, 2004
people do this all the time when watermarking. it can’t be a bug or people would be flipping out about it. as you’re the only one i’ve heard with this problem, it’s most likely some setting on your system.

first check your action and your character palette. sounds like either a text box is being created too small and it’s bunching the characters, or if in free form, it sounds like the leading is set to a small number rather than "auto". are you just typing the text after clicking the image with the text tool? or are you dragging a text box first?

if that doesn’t lead you to a solution, try to reset your prefrences per the faq:

LenHewitt "How to delete/reset Photoshop preferences" 6/23/04 1:05am </cgi-bin/webx?13/0>

if THAT doesn’t work (that’ll reset the char palette settings, among other things… save out any custom shapes, actions, swatches, etc before resetting the prefs) get back to us with EXACTLY the steps you’re recording, and we’ll (someone’ll) try to reproduce it.

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