Using Variables in Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop

In this Episode of The Complete Picture, Julieanne Kost demonstrates the incredible power of Variables in Photoshop. You will learn how to cut hours out of your production time when you need to combine text and photographs. Although this feature has been in Photoshop for many releases, only a small number of customers know of its immense power for tasks such as automating event photography and creating web banners.


Adobe Photoshop

Posted on 06-03-2016


Comments

  • By Matt O'Brien - 8:59 AM on June 3, 2016  

    Let me post a few positives :
    1. Variables in Photoshop are extremely useful and a great aid to efficient workflow and automation.
    2. Variables also work with InDesign, where I have used them with javascript to produce complex high quality print templates.
    But ……
    Lightroom holds all (or most of) our variable data, so :
    1. Why do Adobe not provide an export option from Lightroom that integrates automatically to the Variable functions in Photoshop. All the metadata is in Lightroom, but no user friendly way to use this in other Adobe products.
    2. Better still, why not make the variables available immediately in Photoshop when we click on an image in Lightroom to edit in Photoshop.
    Even though I am familiar with Variables in Photoshop it is great to get a reminder of this useful feature. Thank for such a good tutorial.

  • By Eduardo Riganelli - 6:40 AM on June 4, 2016  

    Great tutorial!
    Is there a way to use this method to place the variable in the metadata/keyword of each photo instead of placing it on a layer? Could be done in LR too?

    • By Julieanne Kost - 2:10 PM on June 6, 2016  

      Not by default. But you might want to post the question to the Photoshop forum to see if anyone has created or knows of a custom script to do so.

  • By Helen Anne - 4:33 AM on June 11, 2016  

    Is there a way to use this In Lightroom to read the year the photo was taken for the copyright that can be added when the photo is exported?

  • By Tim Siegert - 11:49 AM on June 11, 2016  

    This is the first time it’s been explained where I could understand it!
    Thank you Julieanne!