Paint Shop Pro Scripts


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The scripts in Paint Shop Pro are both useful and helpful and there sure are a lot of them - a whopping 58 to be exact.

If that isn't enough then an Internet search will turn up hundreds more that are free (in some cases) and others you can buy.

It's fun to have hundreds of scripts installed but if you download a whack of them, install them, test them and never use them again then it is a waste of computer resources, isn't it?

Another thing to consider is keeping your computer as safe as possible and one never knows what will be downloaded along with that cool sounding script

How about this - write your own really useful scripts for those common things you do with Paint Shop Pro and that way there is no chance of downloading something nasty.

Writing them is easy as you will discover ...

The Toolbar


If the palette on your copy of Paint Shop Pro is not visible then go to View > Toolbars > Script and it will pop onto your screen.  It looks like this ...


scripts palette


From left to right this is the palette ...

  1. The active script you can run.  Just drop it down to see all the scripts you have installed.  In this case it is an Autochrome script that I wrote for the Autochrome tutorial.  

  2. The Start button - click this to start the script running

  3. The Edit Script button - at first look it appears to be gibberish but it can be useful.

  4. Execution Mode toggle - if you want the script to stop at each step click this button to highlight it.

  5. Open - this seems to do the same thing as the drop down menu.

  6. Stop Button - click to stop running the script.

    7. The next four buttons control recording

  7. Start Recording

  8. Pause Recording

  9. Cancel Recording

  10. Save Recording

Recording


Probably the first thing to do is decide what you want to achieve.    Let's say, for the sake of the tutorial, that you have a bunch of images that you need to resize and then add a decorative frame.

Both of those things are easy to do but if you have 40 of them to do - well - what a drudge!  

scripts vs ghia


The original print size for this image is 14" X 10" so let's downsize it to 6" X 4" for easy home printing and then add a nice frame.  This is a simple two step process ...

  1. Resize
  2. Add a frame (Image > Picture Frame).
To get started click the little blue circle to start your recording and then ...

script resize
Image > Resize or Shift+S.  This brings up the Resize palette.  

In the Print Size area at the top enter the new size in the boxes (6 X 4 in this case).  The program may make a few changes to conform to the aspect ratio of the original image.  

At the bottom of the palette there is an Advanced settings check box.   Put a check mark in the box and then ...

Put a check mark in Resample using and drop down the menu to Bicubic.

Move the Sharpness slider all the way to the right to Sharper (these are the settings that are best for downsizing an image).

Click OK - the first step of your recording is complete.

Now go to Image > Picture Frame which brings up this palette ...


script frame


Drop down the menu and browse through the different frames available to find the perfect one for your images.  I chose Polaroid for this one.

Click OK and the second and final step of your script is completed.

Go to the script controls and click the Save button to give your nice new script a name you will remember.  

(The script will be saved in the Scripts-Trusted file ( which is located in the following location ... My Documents > My PSP Files > Scripts-Trusted - just so you know.)


Script save dailogue


Your new script will now be available in the Select script drop down dialogue.  Return to the original image by doing a Revert or do some multiple undo's.

Load up your nice new script and hit the start button - it should run flawlessly.  Here is my  end image ...

scripts polaroid frame


Execution Mode



script palette


If you click off the Execution Mode (the third icon from the left) then the script will run un-interrupted from start to finish.

When Execution Mode is highlighted like in this image then the script will stop at each step so modifications to the dialogues can be made.  This mode runs a bit slower but gives you the ability to change your mind with a dialogue.

For example let's say you look at the image with the Polaroid border and tell me, in no uncertain terms, that my choice was really stupid.

I really respect your opinion so Execution Mode gets turned on and when the script comes to the Picture Frames dialogue another, more appropriate frame can be chosen.

An Example


As I was working on the aforementioned Autochrome tutorial is occurred to me that it may be a suitable candidate for a script so I gave it a go and it works perfectly.

It is much longer than the example script from above and here are the steps ...

  1. Split the image into RGB
  2. Tile Horizontally.
  3. Add noise to the Red Channel.
  4. Add noise to the Green Channel.
  5. Add noise to the Blue Channel.
  6. Re-combine the RGB Channels.
  7. Do a Levels adjustment on the Red component of the image.
  8. Do a Levels adjustment on the Green component of the image.
  9. Do a Levels adjustment on the Blue component of the image.
  10. Duplicate the Raster 1 Layer.
  11. Do a high Average Blue on the duplicated layer.
  12. Change the Blend Mode of the duplicated layer to Color (Legacy).
  13. Lower the Opacity of the duplicated layer to 20%
  14. Flatten the layers
  15. Apply a Brightness and Contrast adjustment.

The first time the script was run it worked perfectly so being an adventurous sort - I ran it on multiple images with Execution Mode both on and off.

The only problem I found was that after step 6 (re-combine the channels) the channels didn't close so I ended up with my new image plus 4 more (the red, green, blue channels plus the original image) on screen.

After running Autochrome a few times there were about 25 open files on screen and closing them all was very irksome.  For each open file the process was ...

  1. File > Close or Ctrl-F4 (the two keys are far apart so both hands had to be used)
  2. My cursor jumped to Yes on the save dialogue and I didn't want to save the files so a pen motion to No was needed.

It occurred to me that I could also write a quick script to close all those files much more quickly  - so that's what I did (it took almost 30 seconds to write) and it made the tedious job of closing all those file much easier...

A real advantage of scripts is their ability to automate repetitive and tedious tasks.



Binding Scripts


Any script can be bound to either the toolbar or a menu which makes it very easy to access your favorites.

This is how to bind a script ...

Select View > Customize which brings up this palette.

scripts customizeThis is where you can customize Paint Shop Pro.

The tabs are:

1.  Commands
2.  Toolbars
3.  Keyboard
4.  Menu
5.  Options
6.  Scripts

To bind a script to a menu or the toolbar the Scripts tab needs to be activated.





This is the Scripts screen in the Customize Menu ...

scripts palette



To bind a script simply drop the menu down to select the script you want to bind anscripts boundd then click on one of the little icons.  

With the icon highlighted click the Bind button and the icon and the name of the script will show up in the Bound Scripts box.

The next step is to drag the icon onto the toolbar or up into the menu.

Now you have your script easily accessible.  Isn't that great?

Page Links

The Script Toolbar

Recording a Script

Execution Mode

An Example

Binding



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