Adobe Photoshop

The workflows presented on this site for the ADIEUX Project depend in great part on the use of Adobe Photoshop to process a TIFF document image. Photoshop can add or replace metadata, add layers and watermarks, and save the resulting document in the JPEG2000 format (individually or within a PDF). As noted elsewhere, JPEG2000 support relies on a plug-in that is not included in a standard installation.

Simple processes can be automated with "actions", but for more complex tasks scripts are used. VBScript can be used for Windows platforms, AppleScript for the Mac OS, and JavaScript for either platform. For cross-platform compatibility, therefore, JavaScript was chosen for the ADIEUX Project. Note that the .jsx extension is used in preference to .js to ensure greater flexibility (the scripts are interpreted with the ExtendScript engine). These scripts can be run externally and launch Photoshop; however, if placed in the \Preset\Scripts folder they are listed in the File > Scripts menu of Photoshop for easy access.

In order to develop scripts for the ADIEUX Project, in which JPEG2000 plays a key role, it was necessary to make use of undocumented functions. For this, ScriptListener was used. (Although part of a standard installation, this plug-in is not normally active: to use it, the file ScriptListener.8li must be copied from the \Scripting\Utilities folder to\Plug-Ins\Automate; it then creates a ScriptingListenerJS.log to record most actions in Photoshop.)

Unlike Photoshop actions, the ADIEUX Project scripts provided here may be copied and used on any platform that supports JavaScript.

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