Digital Light & Color

I figured that saving functional scripts with Copy on top is the most useful way of reusing them later. The Copy can be pointed to any image in the workspace and it even has a shortcut to 'load' a new file and point to it (none for Paste, but that's easy enough).

However, if the Copy points to File Open with multiple images, it uses its current image and couldn't be used in batch mode. The easiest way I figured to circumvent it is to copy all transformations under the Copy to below the Multiple Open and run this as a batch. To do that, Copy needs to be pointed to some other image first (other than the Multiple Open) or to None as otherwise, it gives the Circular Reference error. Even then, that may create reference problems (i.e. some transformations may still refer to the specific images under the Copy, not to their copied versions under Multiple Open).

I wonder if the Copy could be modified to allow running in batch (if it points to Multiple Open) and thus avoid the copying and fixing references steps?

p.s. I also noticed that when the script is fairly complicated and the top image to which Copy points to changes, the script is naturally recalculated, but as each transformation is recomputed, the browser graphics keep blinking (i.e. all thumbnails disappear and are repainted after each transformation is recalculated in turn). This is not much of a real problem, other than ornamental, but I'll mention it anyway.

Just had an epiphany: it is already working the way I wanted it to! The batch run needs to be triggered from the Multiple Open (I was looking for some trigger in the Copy instead) and the images will be passed to the Copy and processed in turn.

Just noticed another thing: on right-click File Open there is a Convert to Copy option, which converts it to Copy. Right-clicking on Copy also has an option Convert to Copy which disconnects the Copy from the source image. An idea would be that perhaps the Copy could have the Convert to File Open option instead?

You can always point the copy to a File Open.