You can do everything you want if you Save the actions, etc. from the flyout menus in the various palettes or dialogs. If you don’t actually Save them they are automatically "saved" in a Preferences file, but that can be somewhat less easy to work with and there is the chance that they can be corrupted and lost.
Saved Presets files can be transported to another computer, put on a file server, the internet, whatever. Action sets are .atn files; Shapes are .csh files, Brushes .abr and so forth.
A good place to save your Presets is in the Photoshop Presets folder, in the appropriate subfolders. That way you can easily load them by choosing them from the flyout menu. However, you can save them anywhere and Load them from the same menu.
Check out Edit>Presets Manager for better saving and organizing. Also, back’em up.
EDIT: Same applies to Keyboard shortcuts, Tool Presets and such too.
However, if you only save 1 copy in the presets folder, these are wiped out when you reset preferences. If you want to truly back up "custom" whatever, save once to the preset folder and again to another folder OUTSIDE of the Photoshop APPLICATION folder!I have copies on a separate drive and also on CD.
If you are working on client projects, you can also backup all "custom" to your archival CD…that way you don’t have to go looking for swatches actions, whatever you created for that client’s needs.
Christine,
I don’t believe resetting Preferences wipes out anything in Presets if they are saved. Of course backing up is always a good idea.
Speaking for "actions" only…
Where are all the custom actions that I created saved?
Custom actions are saved in file "Actions Palette.psp" in your equivalent of:
C:\Documents and Settings\[user name]\Application Data\Adobe\Photoshop\7.0\Adobe Photoshop 7.0 Settings
Important: Window Folder View setting "Show Hidden Files/Folders" must be "on."
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During normal PS shutdown the contents of the Actions Palette is saved in this file. At startup PS reads this file and populates the Actions Palette from this file.
Can I make all the actions on one computer and load it on another?
In theory I believe this would work. The "master copy" of Actions Palette.psp could be automatically copied (via Windows batch command) to the six client machines say, nightly at 2 a.m., replacing the previous edition of Actions Palette.psp.
The only provision would be that PS "not be running" at the time of file replacement.
While creating and deploying individual "master" .atn files would work, manual loading of the .atn file(s) would be required to synchronize each machine, which requires people to remember to do it.
How about Shapes, Tool presets, Keyboard shortcuts, etc.?
I’m pretty sure the same concept could be applied to the preferences files corresponding to these as well, but cannot confirm. It would be easy to try.
Let us know how you do.
My problem with that, is that while it would work, it would replace the other computer’s preference file and any actions "saved" in it would then be gone.
Swapping prefs files between computers makes me nervous.
My problem with that, is that while it would work, it would replace the other computer’s preference file and any actions "saved" in it would then be gone.
Without a doubt and a good point for consideration.
My ass-u-me-tion on the working environment:
* One person creates/modifies all actions.
* In order to ensure consistent results dept. policy is the rest of the folks use only the std. actions.
I would be leary about swapping "the" prefs file, esp. among machines with different HW configs or different SP levels. Definitely suspicious of cross platform issues and almost gauranteed not to work between different PS versions.
Seems, though, that Actions Palette.psp would be pretty generic. A couple years back as a test I sent mine (via e-mail) to a PS buddy who installed/used it on his PC w/o issue. Not iron clad proof there would never be compatibility problems, but at least PS didn’t crash/burn and give up on the first attempt.
Anyway, my CYA was the "in theory" qualifier. 🙂
Ok Everyone – Thanks sooo much for all the input. Here’s what I did and it worked Perfectly. First off, we use photoshop to crop rotate size, etc. pictures for ebay. We sell coins and have to take nice close up shots off all the coins we list. We take pics with a camera. So i needed away to crop out close-up and have a full shot of the holder the coin is in. We have 4 pics per coin. And we take 100-400 pics a day. So thats 400-800 pic we create daily. So i needed a fast way to do all this. The ppl that are using the programs know nothing about photoshop and never have heard of it. So this needed to be as simple as possible. They would never use any of the other options, actions, shapes, etc. other then what i’m giving them.
All 6 computers are identical, all built at the same time with the same stuff. And all computers have the same verison of photoshop 9.0. And my computer at home has the same verion too. Oh all computers are on XP. I made all the settings at home and emailed them to the office.
I did a backup of all my stuff first like u guys suggested. I then when to the preset manager, went to the styles, highlighted all the styles i wanted to use and save set. Then went to shapes, tool, etc. did the same thing. Then I went to the action window, highlighted saved the action set. I went to the keyboard Shortcuts saved that. And then went to window> workspace and saved it. Then I emailed myself at work all the verious files from program files\adobe\…..\presets and the workspace from C:\Documents and Settings\[user name]\Application Data\Adobe\Photoshop\9.0\Settings\workspace.
Then I went and put all the files in all the correct folders on each computer. Then went to the preset manager and loaded every file. I went to the keyboard shortcuts and in the set box: theres a pull down menu you can choose the file you saved – it shows both my org. settings and the new one I saved up in there. The went actions loaded the actions. And then went to window>workspace and the saved workspace files shows up at the bottom of that menu. And then it looks just like i wanted it to. I didnt have to "replace" any files, just added them. And it seems that you can go back and forth really easily if u have different set ups.
It didnt override/delete/replace anything for good. I saved all my setup at home first so I could go back to all my org. settings.
When I loaded the shapes, actions, styles, patterns, etc. they were just added to the existing stuff there. But I deleted all the other shapes, actions, styles, patterns, etc. So they wouldnt be confused plus they wont be using em anyways.
The Keyboard shortcuts and the workspace did replace the current layouts and shortcuts, but you can easily go back and get em from the pull down menu if you saved it.
I didnt replace any of the files from C:\Documents and Settings\Cherie\Application Data\Adobe\Photoshop\9.0\Adobe Photoshop CS2 Settings folder. Just added the saved workspace to the workspace folder in that settings folder.
THANKS EVERYONE FOR ALL YOUR HELP – I KNEW PHOTOSHOP WAS SMART ENOUGH TO DO IT. AND I AM SOOOOO GLAD IT COULD BE DONE WITH SUCH EASE !!!
