Photoshop batch for composite images

[xadrian]

Just thought I'd ask here because we're all PS users and someone might know the answers to this.

I've been tasked on creating composite images for large organizations. You've seen them when you got to hospitals or law firms or the like. They are small photos of the person with their name underneath. Even a yearbook would be similar.

Now, dragging and dropping the image, typing each name and aligning it all doesn't take long, but when you get up to 800 photos, it just becomes damn boring.

So, does anyone have any idea how Photoshop could do this as a batch process or if not is there an application that could? I'm thinking of something that could first resize photos to meet the composite image requirements (PS can do that) but then can layout each photo in a grid, then possible pull text from a file and insert them underneath each photo. My guess is you'd have to have a template created with cells or map locations and the "script" would have to understand that image 1 goes in area 1 and name 1 goes in text 1, something like that.

Any ideas?

[Manji]

Yeah good luck with that, I hope someone knows something because I have been trying to figure out how to append or just rename files in ps using batch.

[Inkthinker]

You can batch process the resizing, and you could (I think) automatically add a block of text so long as it's the same text each time... but I can't think of a way to automate the rest of the process.

[xadrian]

I didn't figure it would, and I'm hoping there's a way programatically that it can be done, if not with PS than with something else. If not, I guess I'm writing something.

[Inkthinker]

Weeeelll... there's a couple things you can do to assist the process, if not automate it.

For instance, you can set up a page template in Photoshop that incorporates all the elements which are static, such as titles and the like. You can drop in guides to follow the placement of the individual photos, and then set your Snap to guides, so that when you move in the files you're not wasting time with placement... just move the image into the area and it should snap to position.

If you have 800 images that's a lot, but it's not something unfathomable... with the right set up and a little templating it's a job that shouldn't take more than a couple days of work to do. Boring work, to be sure, but hey... gettin' paid.

[xadrian]

but hey... gettin' paid.

Yeah, and when it was pitched, I said there'd be a charge per photo but I'd also work on setting up a process and charge per hour to create it.

Money's money, I'm not gonna be picky about it being exciting.

I'm wondering if a prepress app would have something like this. Quark or InDesign maybe? I know nothing about those.