how to mass edit / save icons without an action script.
Alright everyone ! ! So over the years here on tumblr, I’ve gained a rather LARGE collection of icons which I’ve, painstakingly made, hand by hand and one by one. I’m sure others can agree that they’re sick and tired of sitting in photoshop for HOURS with the same motions of cut + paste + save for each new icon (and when you make thousands of icons like I do, you go a little crazy) Personally, I’ve looked into how to mass edit these icons, I’ve tried everything from PHOTOSCAPE (which doesn’t let you slap psd’s on top) and action scripts (which if you don’t understand it like me, it fails all the time.) BUT FEAR NOT ! ! Somehow I’ve discovered how to mass edit and save icons WITHOUT AN ACTION SCRIPT. All you’ll need is one thing;
● Photoshop CS6 / portable (a link to download can be found here)
but if you’re able to figure out how to do this in the photoshop
version you’re comfortable with, please don’t feel forced to change.
Before I get into this tutorial I’m SORRY that I’m NOT placing it under a read more, the reasons are simply that if this blog is to ever be deleted or moved or changed URLS - no one would be able to read it under the read more, so please keep that in mind !
For those who want to save RAW icons; feel free to skip down to step six as it should explain what to do !
Instructions.
(step one.) so, first thing that you’re going to want to do, is load all of your icons into a STACK, this means that each icon you load will be a separate layer but in the one canvas. To do this, you’ll want to do the following. FILE » SCRIPTS » LOAD FILES INTO STACK
After clicking on this, a new popup will come onto the screen, what you want to do is click on BROWSE and it’s through this you’ll navigate to the icons you want to edit (for me I’ve chosen my mirai icons which are numbered into the 1500′s) you don’t need to worry about any of the other boxes, when the files are loaded into the grey box, hit OK. Note that pending on how many icons you have to edit, this process might take a while to run on photoshop (for me it took a good 15 mins or so to load up 1,500 icons) but you should end up with something like this; notice how all my icons are now in one canvas, but in multiple layers, that’s what you want.
also please be aware you’re computer MAY OVER HEAT - if you’re on an older computer or laptop I recommend that you just let this process be and to not touch anything else in the mean time.
(step two.) Now, for the next step, you’ll want to open up your timeline, if you don’t already have it up, just go to WINDOW » TIMELINE as shown in the below image, this should then bring up what is given in the second image ( bigger resolution HERE )
click on the CREATE FRAME ANIMATION and you should get the following in your time line bar; also SOME users may already have this automatically come up and this is OKAY, it’ll work the same even if you don’t go through the above step.
Now, what you’re going to do is go to the top, right hand corner of this timeline window, click on the little box and hit MAKE FRAMES FROM LAYERS. You should end up with the result below (which is also highlighting where the box that you need to do this is - it’s only greyed out because I already clicked the button.) also, for the sake of order, if you like your icons in chronological order - hit the REVERSE FRAMES button.
now, I almost forgot to do this and this is a step you can do before making the timeline animation / frames - if your icons need a bigger canvas size - due to borders, psds or whatever - MAKE SURE YOU CHANGE THE CANVAS SIZE, you can do this by IMAGE » CANVAS SIZE. which will pop up with what is given in the second image, use this to change the canvas size to whatever your edits take up, for me I need a canvas size of 108 x 108 pixels - please also note this will take some time to process in photoshop, so please be patient.
(step three.) so now, comes onto the more difficult part, but when you have this memorized it should be easy to continue for other icons which you make. First thing that you’re going to do; in the bottom LEFT hand corner of the timeline window, there’s a small button and you’re going to click that - it’s highlighted in the following image;
clicking this will cause your timeline to change into something that looks like this ; and i’m sure you’ve seen this with other tutorials but DON’T STRESS it doesn’t get complicated - once again however this is a lengthy process to convert.
When this is finished, you’re going to SELECT ALL OF YOUR LAYERS. After this, you’ll be going to FILTER » CONVERT FOR SMART FILTERS. Once you finish this, you should get what is in the second image;
DO NOT STRESS ABOUT THIS AND THE FACT THAT ONLY ONE LAYER NOW SHOWS - THIS IS WHAT YOU WANT AND YOU HAVE NOT DELETED ANYTHING. If you simply move the slider around on the time line, you can see that all the layers are still there, think of the smart filter as fancy folder.
(step four.) Now comes to the FUN part of editing ; so, what you’ll need to do is open up the PSD file that you use for your icons, for me I have a few filters that I change depending on if I use manga, live action or anime - make sure to also drag this canvas out into a smaller one to make the next steps easier.
as you can see from the above, I have my icon psd selected and yet the icons I’d like to edit are still able to be seen, now, you’re going to drag the layers of your psd - what you usually place ontop of your icons, and DRAG THEM onto the icons you want to edit like the following;
This should drop onto your icons all nice and neat and in frame, if not, simply move them around as you normally would until everything lines up all nice and neat, but HOLD ON A SECOND. there’s something VERY IMPORTANT that you need to take care of;
In the above image, there are these purple little sections now added in the timeline, what you want is for these to be lined up like the image below, they need to start where the longer purple section starts and, they need to END where they end (DO NOT EXTEND OR SHORTEN THE PURPLE SECTION WHERE YOUR ICONS ARE.)
So now, you should end up with the bottom image, everything is now neat and the same length. If you’ve done this, the hard part is now over and you can relax a little now, there are only a few more steps and you’re done !
Now, you’re going to repeat a step that you’ve already done, like before, you’re going to SELECT ALL LAYERS and convert them for a smart filter, so you’ll end up with just a single layer and a single, purple section like the following;
(step five.) Now we’re going to get onto how to save all of these icons, first what you’re going to want to do is click on the upper right box, like you did earlier and as show below. You’ll be going to CONVERT FRAMES » FLATTEN FRAMES INTO CLIPS.
Now, your work space should look like the following; there’s frames for each icon and a layer for each icon, but you’ll notice that each icon is edited with your PSD, it’s a miracle ! and this means you’re on the right track. Keep going, you can do it.
Now in the bottom left corner there should be three squares to click on, these will return you to the timeline you were familiar with before, it’s a more simplified version;
Now, you should get the following image after clicking that little button, but before you move onto the next step, there are two IMPORTANT THINGS you need to know before moving on.
In the first frame, the number HAS TO BE CHANGED TO ‘NO DELAY’ this is done by clicking the area highlighted in the picture - DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP by skipping this step, when you save your icon, you’ll end up with the same one repeated, so this needs to be changed.
You also need to scroll to he bottom of your layers and DELETE the one layer that isn’t visible, once again it’s highlighted in the image.
(step six.) [ this can be applied to raw icons if you make them in the same layer or canvas ]
Now, to save all of your icons you’re going to want to go to FILE » EXPORT » RENDER VIDEO. I know it seems strange, but this will save you all the time in the world, and best of all you don’t have to download any scripts !
after clicking on this, the following will pop up and it’s with this, I’ll explain what details you need to change.
name: personaly, I like to number my icons numerically ; so I placed a ‘0′ these will save your icons in the sequence of ‘ 0001, 0002, 0003 … 0345, 0346, 0347 ‘ etc etc.
select folder: these will be where your icons save.
create new subfolder: i never use this, but this would save the icons in a new folder in the folder you’ve selected.
adobe media encoder box: ALWAYS CHANGE THIS TO ‘PHOTOSHOP IMAGE SEQUENCE’
format: whatever you save your icons as, change this, for icons with a transparent background, they should be saved to a PNG format.
starting: This is the number where the icons will save as; if you chose 0 for example, your first icon will save as ‘0′
digits: this is how many digits you want in the name, I always set this to 1
size: this should stay the same with your canvas size and you shouldn’t have to touch this.
Making sure ALL FRAMES are selected, simply hit the RENDER button and watch as your icons save in one place and you’re DONE.
I really hope that this tutorial makes sense, it’s the best I could do / how to explain things and I hope that it helps a lot of people who struggle making icons.
please feel free to reblog this if it has helped.
