Keystroke short cut tools

[mbrant]

Happy New Year to All,

Does anyone know of a tool that would allow me to create and execute a macro within Elements 5?

I do a lot of sports photography. My best friend is my camera's burst mode and my worst enemy is my camera's burst mode.

I use Elements as the first step in my workflow and I process a large number of shots with it. I import my raw files into Elements, tag them, and then go through the initial sorting. This step involves deleting sometimes literally hundreds of shots at a time. I use the keyboard shortcuts (delete, spacebar, enter) but I'd like to be able to reduce this to a single keystroke or click.

I know it seems trivial, but it does add a noticeable amount of time which really does add up and at least for me every repetitive task that takes more than a click or keystroke becomes annoying.

I'm willing to consider hardware such as the Logitech Nulooq if that would help.

Thanks,
-Mike

[Carbone]

PSE doesn't support any kind of Macro or Scripting programming. You would need a Windows tool for that, something that would allow GUI scripting within Windows itself (and not MS-DOS).

I am in no way a Windows power user so I can't help you with that. I know such a thing exists in Mac OS where you can script GUI elements (something like "Click On Third Item In Edit Menu of Application Photoshop Elements", or "Enter 0,8 in Field One Of Dialog Box 1 Of Application Photoshop Elements" for when you want to adjust the Gaussian Blur, for example) but it's not user friendly and I haven't really tested this myself.

For best results, thought, you should consider switching to full Photoshop. It has scripting in Java or Visual Basic for Windows (and Applescript or Java for Mac), it supports recording Macros too. You might hunt E-Bay for an older version (PS7 or CS would be fine)

Ray

[mbrant]

Thanks Ray,

I have CS2 and use it for editing. I'm much more comfortable with Elements' organizer than I am with Bridge. I like the way it handles tags, and I have to admit, for quick things and some creations, I greatly prefer the ease and convenience of Elements.

I might consider making the move away from Elements with the official release of Lightroom, but until then, I'm going to stay where I am.

-Mike

[Wendy]

Hi Mike ...

You could always use CS2 with the Organiser ... :)

Wendy

[mbrant]

Hi Wendy,

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. I think I do use CS2 with the organizer from Elements, but I'm talking about reviewing and deleting photos within Elements Organizer, before I use CS2 to edit the keepers.

-Mike

[Wendy]

Hi Mike ....

Oh I see what you mean now ... yes if you do use Brige & the Organiser together then you do still need to use the organiser to delete. :(

Wendy

[waynesportsphotos]

Mike, I'm not aware of a macro - - but I do the same thing that you do - - and what works for me is that when I am reviewing pictures (F11) or viewing in the organizer, I tag the pictures that I want to delete with a 3 star (in PSE 5.0 the shortcut key is the number 3) - - that is just the convention I use. I delete at the end - - I have been doing this for a while so I make sure I don't use the 3 star for anything else. Hope this helps.

Joe
http://waynesports.smugmug.com

[mbrant]

Hi Joe,

That's a great suggestion. I only use the 4 and 5 star ratings, so I should be able to echo your approach.

Thanks!

[dunner]

I also do alot of sports photog and have the same problem/blessing. I use the organizer to delete files. I have a collection in the organizer called "Junk". The files I don't want get added to the junk collection. When I'm done, I select the junk collection, press CTRL A to select all files in that collection, and then delete them all (from the collection AND the disk). Works pretty well for me.

[Wendy]

Hi dunner ...

... and welcome to the forum :)

Thanks for sharing your workflow ...

Wendy

[mbrant]

Hi All,

I've taken the suggestion of using the stars to flag the shots I want to delete and it works very well.

I sort my shots into three categories - delete, keep, and share. I used the star system to assign delete and share. My next question is: Is there a way I can select a group of photos and delete a tag from just those (other than one at a time)? I want to use the 2 stars to temporarily flag them with the share designation and then when I'm done, replace the 2 stars with a share tag.

Also, is there a way to assign a key to a tag, like the stars?

Thanks,
-Mike