Need a little help with macros

[Alan9940]

When recording a macro, how do I put multiple layers into a group? I thought I'd do it as I normally would by shift/clicking the non-active layer to have both layers highlighted, then click the Group button, but the app wouldn't let me select multiple layers during recording. Also, one of my steps is a USM filter where I'd like interactive control during playback. According to Help, you click the Settings icon and enable the "eye?" When I click the gear on the USM step, I see the parameters set during the macro recording, but no "eye" or whatever to inform the macro that I want interactive control during this step. If it matters, I'm running the latest version on Windows 10.

[smadell]

1) As you've already discovered, Macro recording won't let you select 2 layers at once in order to group them. The easiest workaround is this: (1) create whatever layer will occupy the bottommost layer in your eventual group. Add the settings you want, and give the layer a unique name. (2) With that newly created layer still selected, choose "New Group" from the Layer menu, or simply click on the Group icon at the bottom of the Layers panel. You should now have a Group, with no specific name. Give the Group a unique name. (3) Open the Group by clicking on the triangle (to reveal its contents) and click on the single layer inside it. The macro will ask if you want to choose the Child layer, and you should say yes to that. (4) With that child layer selected, you can add additional layers (adjustments, filters, etc) and these will all be placed inside the Group. (5) Here's the most important part!! To get out of the Group, in order to work outside of it, you can't just click on something outside of the group. First, you have to click on the Group itself. The macro will ask you to confirm that you want to select the Parent Layer. Yes, you do. Now you're outside of the Group's contents and you can continue with your other macro programming.

All that stuff about giving layers unique names has a point, too. If the layers you create with a macro have unique names, you can then make sure that subsequent steps in your macro can select them (by name, rather than by position) and assure that you're selecting the correct layer.

2) Once you have put an Unsharp Mask filter into your macro (make sure you are using a Live Filter Layer and not the filter from the Filters menu, which is destructive), give it your default settings and continue/finish the macro. Turn recording off. Now, click on the Gear icon next to Unsharp Mask in the list of steps for the macro. A sub-panel will fly open, with three sliders: Radius, Factor, and Threshold. Just to the left of each word is a tiny little eyeball icon (it might be hard to see). Click on it and you will be able to give that setting a name. This name will show up in the dialog box that opens while the macro is playing back. So, instead of leaving the first one as "Radius" you might want to rename it "Set the Radius…" to give the user some instruction. Whatever you entered as a value (while recording) will be presented to the user as a default value.

[Alan9940]

THANK YOU, smadell. I had to record it like 3 or 4 times to get it right, but I think I have what I want now. Yay!

1) Just wow...I would have never figured this out without your expert help! That's one thing I love about AP...things ya wanna do are so straightforward and logical.    

2) Ya know...those little (and I mean teenie-weenie) eyeball icons against the dark grey background are just way too small for these 70 year old eyes to see! I'm sure they were there when I made the first recording, but I didn't know specifically where to look. Got 'em now, though.

Thanks, again, for all your help.

[smadell]

Alan. I wish I could say that all of this was perfectly obvious to me right away. But I had plenty of macro recordings crash on me when I tried to exit a Group without first selecting the parent (the group, itself). It really was quite a lot of trial and error. But, once you know how to make it work, it's pretty seamless.

You can also get things inside a group by using the "Move Inside" command from the menus. Once inside the group (or for any situation, really) you can use the various choices on the Arrange menu to re-order them (e.g., Move Forward One, Move Back One, and so forth).

My nearly-66 year old eyes had a really hard time reading and seeing all the little UI doodads in Dark Mode. I still like the "look" of dark mode, but I recently started using Light Mode because it's so much easier to read the interface text and to see the little monochromatic stuff (like those teensy weensy eyeballs).

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, smadell said:

You can also get things inside a group by using the "Move Inside" command from the menus. Once inside the group (or for any situation, really) you can use the various choices on the Arrange menu to re-order them (e.g., Move Forward One, Move Back One, and so forth).

I was playing around with using this approach in a macro to group several layers.  It works after a fashion but as it is, it adds the bottommost layers one at a time to the group, so it is not really all that useful. Group + arrange.afmacro included if you want to play with it.

[smadell]

As @R C-R said, the "Move Inside" approach is clunky, at best. When I'm creating a macro, I almost never use it. I mentioned it only for completeness sake.

[Alan9940]

One more clarification needed...

After building the macro and getting it into the Library Studio, I returned to the Macro Studio and exported it as a .afmacro file. I'm trying to get this new macro of mine into AP on my iPad, but the Macro Studio on the iPad doesn't recognize the file. I've read that .afmacro is associated with the Macro Studio and that .afmacros ia associated with the Library Studio (which kinda blows my mind), but I guess it makes a little sense when you think of it as the former being a single set of steps, while the latter is or can be an entire category of macros. That said, though, how does one transfer a single macro from the desktop to an iPad?

As always, thanks for any help.

[walt.farrell]

6 minutes ago, Alan9940 said:

After building the macro and getting it into the Library Studio, I returned to the Macro Studio and exported it as a .afmacro file. I'm trying to get this new macro of mine into AP on my iPad,

You must export it as a .afmacros file from the Library panel in your desktop version of Photo (which will give you all the macros in that category), and import that .afmacros file into Photo on the iPad.

[smadell]

If you want, you can “Create New Category” in the Library panel of your desktop version, drag your macro into that category, then export the category (which contains only the single macro) to your drive. Importing that new category (an .afmacros file) into the iPad version effectively brings a single macro into your iPad copy of Photo.

[Alan9940]

Thanks for all your help. I now have my sharpening macro on the iPad. It was a bit strange though when I was air dropping from my Macbook Air to the iPad in that Photo was already open and the import failed. When I closed Photo and did the Airdrop, again, it all proceeded without a hitch. I did find it a little odd that it created a "Default 2" category vs over-writing the existing "Default", but I just removed "Default" and renamed "Default 2" back.

smadell - Yeah, creating a new category in the Library Studio still has me a bit baffled. I had no problem creating my own category, but I couldn't drag any of my macros to the new category; probably some small detail about doing this that I can't see, again!  It makes total sense to me to create, say, a "My Macros" then copy all my custom macros into it. Makes it easy to move between platforms and you won't over-write and/or create a "2" version like I did with "Default".

Well...still learning. Thanks, again, for all the help.

[R C-R]

27 minutes ago, Alan9940 said:

I had no problem creating my own category, but I couldn't drag any of my macros to the new category...

Are you trying to drag an .afmacro file into the category in the Library panel? That won't work, but dragging an .afmacros file into it should.

Note that an  .afmacro file consists of exactly one uncategorized macro; while an  .afmacros file contains one or more macros in a named category. The Library panel only accepts named categories via drag & drop.

[Alan9940]

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

Are you trying to drag an .afmacro file into the category in the Library panel? That won't work, but dragging an .afmacros file into it should.

Note that an  .afmacro file consists of exactly one uncategorized macro; while an  .afmacros file contains one or more macros in a named category. The Library panel only accepts named categories via drag & drop.

Yes, it was a single macro in the Default category. I created a new category, but as you said the drag & drop of the single macro didn't work. This is all rather confusing to me. If I can only drag & drop one category to another, what's the purpose here? If I create a new category and drag Default onto it, will default now be a sub-category or would it contain only the single macros as shown in Default?

[Alan9940]

Just did some quick playing around and drag & drop doesn't work for me. Here is what I did:

1. Exported "Default" (the only category I have in the Library Studio) to the desktop. Interesting (to me, anyway) side note is that it doesn't matter what I name the resulting .afmacros file; it will import as "Default 2".

2. Therefore, I renamed "Default2" to "My Macros".

3. Created a new category called "My Macros 2"

When I grab "My Macros" and try to drop it on "My Macros 2" all I get is a blue line either above or below to reorder the categories. OK, I just had some unused synapse fire...Does the drag & drop mean I can drag an afmacros file from the desktop (or wherever) and drop it on a category in the Library Studio? (Answer: Nope)

[walt.farrell]

17 minutes ago, Alan9940 said:

If I can only drag & drop one category to another, what's the purpose here?

I can drag a macro from one category to another in the Library panel.

[Alan9940]

3 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

I can drag a macro from one category to another in the Library panel.

Wow, thank you Walt! Something about the way you said it made me realize I was trying to drag the work thing. I just did the drag & drop with a single macro from one category to another. Just a little slow with these things...I blame aging!  Thank you all for your patience and help.

[R C-R]

22 minutes ago, Alan9940 said:

I created a new category, but as you said the drag & drop of the single macro didn't work.

You can't drag a .afmacro file into the Library panel. You can drag a macro that is in some category in the Library panel into another category in that panel. So please tell us what exactly it is that you are dragging from where to where if you want us to understand what you mean.

[Alan9940]

35 minutes ago, R C-R said:

You can't drag a .afmacro file into the Library panel. You can drag a macro that is in some category in the Library panel into another category in that panel. So please tell us what exactly it is that you are dragging from where to where if you want us to understand what you mean.

Yep, I've got it now (see my last post just above your reply.) Basically, all I wanted to do was to create my own sharpening macro, put it into my own category called "My Macros", then get my newly created macro into AP on my laptop and on my iPad. I didn't fully understand the difference between the Macro Studio and the Library Studio and what all this meant vis-a-vis exporting/importing a macro. The in app Help documentation is not exactly verbose with explaining all this stuff. But, with the help of members here and playing around I've got a much better idea of how it all works.