March 20, 2009 in Blog, Coding & Scripting, Graphics & Design by Raiyan

Photoshop Scripting : Hello World

Being respectful to traditions, let us start with a script for drawing “Hello World” in Photoshop. One can use Javascript or VBScript in windows or Applescript in Mac for photoshop scripting. The following Javascript code will produce a “Hello World” photoshop document.

var originalUnit = preferences.rulerUnits
preferences.rulerUnits = Units.PIXELS

// Create a new document
var docRef = app.documents.add( 300, 300 )

// Create a new layer
var artLayerRef = docRef.artLayers.add()
artLayerRef.kind = LayerKind.TEXT

// Write our text
artLayerRef.textItem.contents = "Hello World"

// Release references
docRef = null
artLayerRef = null
textItemRef = null

// Restore unit setting
app.preferences.rulerUnits = originalUnit

Code explained :

First of all, we need to keep record of the current unit settings since we are going to change the unit settings according to our preferences. After saving the current units settings, we change the units to PIXELS.

Next, we create a 300X300 pixel document. Then we add a new layer to the new document. Since we want this to be a text layer, we set LayerKind to TEXT.

On the new layer, we write our text, “Hello World”.

At the end, we dereference the variables and restore the previous unit settings.