| RETRIEVING STEPS AND SETTINGS PSP X and 9 author: Joske Backer |
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| If you ever found yourself wishing you could remember all the tools, effects, and settings you used in an image, here is a description of the method I use to retrieve most if not all of them. While you are working on an image, all the steps go into its history. Have your History Palette open (View, Palettes, History) and you will see them in there. Now, when you select all these steps in the History Palette (hold Shift, click on the first and then the last step), you can save them as a Quickscript - just click the icon with the disk to do so. 
Take care though: the history will only be available as long as the image is open. Once you close it, its history will be gone. The Quickscript will be saved to the Scripts-Trusted folder. If your paths are default, this folder is in My PSP Files or in My PSPX(9,8) Files depending on your version. Within PSP, scripts can be accessed either through File, Script, or by having the Script Toolbar on your workspace (View, Toolbars, Script).  You can edit the Quickscript -it's now called QuickScriptTemp- from within PSP with a text editor. Generally this will be Notepad, but you can go to File, Prerences, File Locations to see which one is entered behind Python Source Editor. PSP will know which editor to use if there is a path to it.  Open the script within PSP with File, Script, Edit or by activating the scroll icon in the Script Toolbar You will see a lot of code, but just look for familiar names like # Fill or # Kaleidoscope or # Unsharp Mask Underneath these names will always be clues about the settings you used: Fill may show the RGB value of a color, the name of a gradient or a pattern; Kaleidoscope shows the scale, number of petals, you name it; Unsharp Mask shows clipping and all else.   Also look for cues like New Raster Layer, Duplicate Layer, Select Layer, and Select All. What is underneath, until for instance another layer is selected or created, will tell you that the steps are done on a particular layer or selection.  You can write all these settings down to use them in future images. Even if you are not able to trace back all the code in the script to settings in tools or effects, chances are they will jog your memory or enable you to come close to them. Of course you can also print the code. If you do, why not first delete all the code that is inconsequential to your list of steps: 
You can even try and see how the script will run on a different image. If you choose to do this, don't be disappointed if the outcome is not even close to what you had in mind: most effects and many tools interact with content. If you plan on keeping the Quickscript, be sure to rename it. Each save of a Quickscript will overwrite a former. One easy way to rename the script is File, Script, Edit, and then rightclick on the filename to choose Rename from the menu. Joske Spring 2006 |
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