Why won’t align layers work in action?

BA
Posted By
Brett Arrowood
Aug 26, 2003
Views
359
Replies
6
Status
Closed
I’m trying to create an action for watermarking many many files. The difficulty is that each file is different in size so I want the watermark text to be centered in the image window. I’ve created the text and selected it, then using the move tool I select align vertical centers and align horizontal centers. It works great while I’m recording the action, but does not work when replaying the action. Is this one of the commands that cannot be recorded in an action? But from reading the manual it says that the move command can be recorded.

Is there another way to position the text to be centered in each image regardless of the image size?

Thanks for any help.

Brett
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action align layer work

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brett arrowood
Aug 26, 2003
YrbkMgr,

Thanks so much for your reply. I was going crazy trying to figure out why everything worked using the buttons when doing it manually, but not when saved in an action. I would like to know why Adobe chose to ignore the buttons in actions, and more importantly why they did not have the good sense to put that in their documentation.

Thanks again for helping me with this riddle.

Brett
Y
YrbkMgr
Aug 26, 2003
Brett,

I pulled my hair out when I thought that I was recording it, and my layers weren’t aligning. Then I tried the "other" way and it worked.

Just like the movement of celestial bodies, the reasons Adobe didn’t include the options bar buttons (or documentation) are predictable, but not necessarily understandable for the casual observer. <grin>

Peace,
Tony
BA
brett arrowood
Aug 27, 2003
Tony,

Do you mean, trying to get Adobe to provide accurate documentation is like trying to move planets? <grin>

I’m sure that building these great applications must be immensely complicated work – certainly tens if not hundreds of thousands of lines of code go into each program. But I do wish that Adobe would be much more careful about documenting these little idiosyncrasies. It could have saved me many wasted hours of frustration.

Anyway, as I often say to my wife "if it was easy anybody could do it".

Thanks for your help.

Brett
Y
YrbkMgr
Aug 27, 2003
Brett,

Couldn’t agree more. You know how many times people say "Read the manual" or "Read the Helpfile"? It’d be nice if this was actually IN the manual or the helpfile.

However, in Adobe’s defense, they are not like other companies in that Photoshop is so powerful that in this case, there’s a workaround – it would suk if it didn’t record it from the menu as well. Also, they plug "holes" in the manual with about the best user support forum I’ve ever seen. Finally, they are pretty well committed to listening to users and implementing changes.

IMO, the TOUGHEST job is to document your program with clear, well communicated manuals/help files.

Peace,
Tony
TM
Trevor Morris
Aug 27, 2003
Tony/Brett:

And for the record, Adobe is indeed already aware of this problem.
TM
Trevor Morris
Aug 28, 2003
Righto, carry on then 😉

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