Photoshop Scripting book?

Mcquiff · Post by **Mcquiff** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 10:31 am

Are there any recommendations for a book on scripting and photoshop?? I would be learning from scratch.

Thanks

undavide · Post by **undavide** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 1:32 pm

Hi,
besides the free Photoshop scripting guide (installed alongside ExtendScript ToolKit, aka ESTK), I would recommend Power, Speed & Automation with Adobe Photoshop by Jeffrey Tranberry and Geoff Scott.
Although, (at least) some basic understanding of the Javscript language is needed.
Regards

Davide Barranca
---
http://www.davidebarranca.com
http://www.cs-extensions.com

xbytor · Post by **xbytor** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 3:09 pm

Has anybody bought a copy of this book? It might be helpful if someone did a review of it and add it to the References, Documentation, and Tutorials section on this site.

undavide · Post by **undavide** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 3:20 pm

I have it - time permitting, I'll add a review there.

Davide

Limey · Post by **Limey** » Thu Oct 09, 2014 5:08 am

Thanks Xbytor and Davide!

csuebele · Post by **csuebele** » Tue Oct 21, 2014 1:03 pm

I'd like to see what you have to say about it, Davide. I had asked Jeff about action manager code, and he just said, "It's a dark art."

undavide · Post by **undavide** » Tue Oct 21, 2014 1:17 pm

It's a dark art indeed, but you've plenty of masters here - namely XBytor and Michael Hale, among the others.
I'm just an apprentice

(By the way, Michael and X are also in the book's acknowledgements... and it's well deserved)

Davide

csuebele · Post by **csuebele** » Tue Oct 21, 2014 1:32 pm

I would imagine that both X and Mike helped with that book. I ran into Jeff a few times a Adobe Max this year, but didn't really have much time to chat at length with him.

undavide · Post by **undavide** » Tue Oct 21, 2014 1:50 pm

Is he still directly involved in PS scripting or he's been swallowed up in some management job?
The Extension Builder team seems to have taken the role of third-part extensibility reference, but on one side there's (to my eyes) too little interconnection between that group and each product's team (PS included - I know it's a hard task to coordinate all of them, but...) on the other side we still need major efforts and resources to keep scripting evolving - or at least alive.
(I stop before getting into my usual pessimistic mood )

Davide

csuebele · Post by **csuebele** » Tue Oct 21, 2014 2:16 pm

Jeff is now Chief Customer Advocate, so I would imagine he's mostly tied up dealing with customers and their problems - little to know time for scripting. Tom Ruak seems to still be very involved with scripting, as I'm sure you know. I got a chance to meet him a few years ago. He knew who I was, and mentioned that I was very prolific on the forums - so they do keep track of us.