I was completely schooled today. Somehow I knew nothing about AppleScript, a Mac function that works like Photoshop Actions by automating repetitive actions. It’s not new, and many books have been written about it. I’ve actually used it before without knowing.

Today our newsroom computer guy sent me an AppleScript that solves a common problem we have in creating photo galleries.

When I first started my job, I was being trained how to create photo galleries and was shocked that I had to rename every filename of every photo (We download our photos from the server with names like “tcl-5lsbeon89w819nsmq8cc_original.jpg,” which apparently are too long or hold too many odd characters for our gallery creator software). I even looked online for a more efficient way of renaming all files in a folder, but didn’t find anything except programs that I had to pay for. Maybe I need to work on my Google search skills?

How to do it:

The process is really pretty self explanatory once you open the AppleScript editor, and it would depend on each user’s specific needs, so I won’t detail a how-to here. It’s not needed anyway.

The AppleScript editor comes standard with Mac, and it works a lot like Actions in Photoshop in that you can record what you do and repeat the process with a push of a button. In fact, if you have Photoshop CS3, AppleScript cane work with Photoshop, resizing your photos, etc

Learn more about AppleScripts here.