Welcome Page | PhotoFlash
Scripts | QuarkXPress Scripts
| Image Companions
The PhotoFlash/QuarkXPress
Image Companions
These are a series of very powerful scripts that will allow you to perform
very complex tasks on images in your QuarkXPress documents automatically.
This is accomplished by linking QuarkXPress and PhotoFlash together via
script applets. I tried selling these as a commercial product but at the
time AppleScript was not very big and no one was interested!
PhotoFlash is a scriptable, recordable image manipulation and cataloging
program from Apple and sells for $99. It is the best kept secret and Apple
has done a wonderful job of nearly making it extinct. In spite of their
efforts, it is still being used (see the PhotoFlash Scripts page on this
site).
I'm posting these scripts saved as run-only and will incorporate the editable
versions in my next upgrade of my commercial scripting product: Sal's AppleScript
Snippets. Details about what it is and how to get it are on the welcome
page.
Note: due to an uncorrected bug in PhotoFlash, these scripts do not work
with DCS or EPS files since PhotoFlash will corrupt them! Apple knew about
this bug when they released the application and are planning no updates
to the program. COMPLAIN to Apple if you can. Thanks.
Note: you must have the PhotoFlash Utilities OSAX installed that comes with
the program and be using QuarkXPress 3.31 or higher. Recommend an internal
script launcher such as XPert Launch from the XPert Tools collection of
XTensions (sold by XChange 800-788-7557) as a way of making th escript available
while in QuarkXPress.
The Scripts
- Crop
Images 1.0 -- Select the image or images in your QuarkXPress
layout that you want to crop to their picture boxes and run the script.
One-by-one it will open them in PhotoFlash and crop them to match their
picture boxes. The script calculates scaling, resolution, and offset and
knows where to crop the image! Once cropped it will replace the one in the
document with the cropped version. There are preference controls for whether
you want the script to use a duplicate file or the original.
Shade
Overlay 1.0 -- This script will lighten or darken an area of a slected
image in QuarkXPress. This is often done to place text over an image and
still have it readable. To use, place a text or picture box (can even be
a polygon) over the part of the image you wish to effect, select the overlay
box and the image, and run the script. The script has preferences for setting
the brightness and contrast of either the area covered by the overlay box
or the area around the overlay box. Like the script above you can perform
this operation on the original or duplicate.
UNDER CONSTRUCTION MORE TO BE POSTED SOON! -- SAL