Can Photoshop work with Voice Recognition?

JO
Posted By
Jim_O_Reilly
Feb 3, 2009
Views
1076
Replies
11
Status
Closed
Hi there,

I have been searching for answers for some time and no one seems to be able to help. I am a photographer and a severe RSI sufferer and sitting at the computer using a mouse or even a tablet still gives me excruciating pain after many years—and every type of physical therapy. I am not here to seek advice on ergonomics or any of that stuff! What I really need advice on is this: with the reliance on computers in digital photography now, is there ANY way to make Photoshop (and related Creative Suite software such as Bridge) work through Voice Recognition with the Mac?

I currently run a Power Mac with 10.4.11 and CS3. I have to get help to work with RAW images in Photoshop and would love to just be able to open the program and use the sliders and menu commands myself instead of relying on others and trying to instruct them on how to work on my images. I am thinking of upgrading to a new Mac and want to see if it’s possible to get something installed or programmed to help me.

This is my last hope of being able to continue with what I love. Any advice or links to info from you guys would be SO appreciated—Thanks! Jim.
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NK
Neil_Keller
Feb 4, 2009
Jim,

With a little luck, Chris Cox may chime in and be able to offer some guidance.

Neil
CC
Chris_Cox
Feb 4, 2009
Not by default.

And I haven’t looked into third party utilities to automate Photoshop by voice.
TC
Thomas_Craul
Feb 4, 2009
believe this technology is’nt in distant future.

if you go for e-speaking.com or do a youtube session you will find videos suc this one here < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgJyqvcAXe0&feature=relat ed> you will also find curious ones there.
CC
Conrad_Chavez
Feb 4, 2009
You can do it to some extent using the Speech Recognition in Mac OS X.

I experimented with this a couple of versions of Photoshop ago (well before CS4 and Leopard), trying to reproduce the scene in Blade Runner where Harrison Ford’s character edits a photo by talking to the computer across the room.

Go to your Mac OS X Preferences and click Speech. Click the Speech Recognition tab and click Speakable Items: On. If the Microphone is set correctly and you understand the current Listening Method (the key to press, or the phrase to say), you’re ready to add commands.

Switch to Photoshop and say "Define Keyboard Command." (How you exactly do this depends on how you set up listening, so for example if you’re doing it Star Trek style with the default Listening Method of saying "Computer" first, then you’d say "Computer: Define Keyboard Command." When the Define Keyboard Command dialog comes up, you press the keystroke for the command you want to invoke. So if I want Image Size, I press Command-Option-I and click OK. Then enter Image Size into the spoken phrase I want it to recognize. From now on, whenever I say "Computer: Image Size" the Image > Image Size dialog box comes up.

If you want to do things not represented by a keyboard shortcut, you can make Speech Recognition trigger AppleScripts and Automator workflows. When I tried the Blade Runner scenario I was able to make Photoshop change the view and run some commands like Unsharp Mask. (as in the movie where Ford says "Pan right and pull back. Enhance.") I was surprised at how much of that science-fiction scene I could reproduce with a stock Mac and Photoshop.

That’s about all I tried – this is the extent of my knowledge on this subject, and I had to Google around a little to remind me how I did that few years ago. But because you have a serious vested interest in this, you might be able to tune your Mac’s speech recognition to significantly lighten your Photoshop load, by setting up your most important commands and adding AppleScripts you need.

It may not be as far in the future as some think.
JO
Jim_O_Reilly
Feb 4, 2009
Thank you Conrad, for your time spent in posting this reply. I will definitely give your suggestions a try and let you know how I get on. Anything that saves my hands at this point is welcome relief.
JO
Jim_O_Reilly
Feb 4, 2009
Thanks Thomas, very interesting stuff. I am a Mac guy so Vista does seems alien to me but I’m open minded at this point. Seems some of the folks commenting on that video don’t seem too impressed by the voice capabilities, however!
TC
Thomas_Craul
Feb 5, 2009
I am a Mac guy so Vista does seems alien to me but I’m open minded at this point.

I can understand.

Seems some of the folks commenting on that video don’t seem too impressed by the voice capabilities, however!

yeah, that’s what i wrote, there are curios videos about speech rec in vista 😉 but, to be honest, the comments at youtube are in general very distracting and rude.

also from my side, good luck man.
T
T._Schmidt
Feb 5, 2009
Hmmm, shouting "HIGHPASS 15 PIXELS! GAUSSIAN BLUR 5 PIXELS! LAYER MODE TO OVERLAY!" and Ps does the rest. Sounds great to me. Would be great for Tool switching too.
P
PECourtejoie
Feb 6, 2009
And expletives should perform an undo?

I thought that Mac OS had a foundation for voice control, but I guess that it needs to have access to "hooks" in the Application Scripting
Even automator has no control on this?

Unless Chris means that there is no built-in voice control in Photoshop, but it can be built using the OS tools?
CC
Chris_Cox
Feb 6, 2009
Even OS tools would need something Photoshop specific to access all the functionality. And I don’t think you’re going to paint by voice anytime soon.
P
PECourtejoie
Feb 8, 2009
And I don’t think you’re going to paint by voice anytime soon.

We will file that as a feature of the Talent Filter, then…

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