Introduction to Juxtapost v1
By Kjell Post, info@pixbookdesign.com
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. About Juxtapost
Juxtapost is a Photoshop plugin consisting of a set of actions with Javascript code for Adobe Photoshop that enables you to design web/blog collages in a quick and efficient manner. With lots of templates (and more if you want to design your own) and options to control spacing, border thickness, radius, color, etc, you can create collages to your own liking.
This manual describes Juxtapost version 1 and all subsequent versions 1.x that may appear later to fix bugs.
2. System requirements
This manual and distribution is intended for Photoshop CS4 and CS5. It doesn’t matter whether you are using Mac OS X, Windows XP, Vista or Win7. You need to have a certain amount of Photoshop experience.
After ordering Juxtapost, you can go ahead and download Juxtapost from the download page. Make sure the zip file is unpacked before you proceed. We will refer to this folder as your Juxtapost folder and it should look something like this:
3. Installation, Activation
Note: if you are using Windows Vista or Win7, you must start Photoshop as administrator: right-click on the Photoshop icon and select “Run as administrator”.
The rest of the installation is described in a video on the Instruction video page.
4. Using Juxtapost
For a quick introduction, please first look at the “Using Juxtapost” vide on the Instruction video page.
The main points of using Juxtapost are:
- A collage is built row-by-row, so select the JPEG images in Bridge that you want in the first row of your collage.
- Right-click on any image, then select “Juxtapost!” (see FAQ if you don’t have this menu option). A window appears with template suggestions (see right).
- If no template suggestions appear, you have probably selected too many images so go back to Bridge and select less.
- If you need to change the template folder, for another set of templates, press “Change” and select another folder. The window redraws itself with the new template suggestions.
- To add the template with the images unto your collage, simply click on a template icon.
- If you rather wish to drop the selected image(s) on top of the collage, for instance to place your logo at the bottom, use the “Place” button.
- Now repeat this process until your collage is finished.
- If you wish to undo a row, use the history palette to step back.
- Use Swap, Enlarge, Shrink, etc, to move and change images in the collage.
- Use the Style command to change colors of background and borders.
- When you are finished, press Save.
Selecting and moving images around
Juxtapost automatically switches to the Move tool (shortcut: “V”). You should also make sure that the box “Auto-Select” is checked. Photoshop will then automatically select the layer corresponding to the image you click on. Simply click on an image before you perform an operation on it. For instance, if you wish to enlarge an image, first click on it, then click on the “Enlarge” button in the Action palette.
Another important feature is the ability to select several images. There are several ways to do this, but they all assume that you have the Move tool active:
- Click on the first image, then hold down Shift and click on the remaining images. Or,
- Use the mouse to drag a selection around the images you want to select. Or,
- Click on the corresponding layers in the layer’s palette.
5. Actions
Let us go through all the Juxtapost actions in detail.
About Juxtapost
If your copy of Juxtapost is not yet activated, “About Juxtapost” opens up a dialogue so that you can enter your activation code. Once unlocked, remember to restart both Photoshop and Bridge. Important: when unlocking on a Windows machine you may have to run Photoshop as administrator.
If Juxtapost is activated, “About Juxtapost” tells you which version you are running (important when you communicate problems back to us) and, if there’s a new version, asks you if you would like to update. Minor updates, e.g., going from 1.2 to 1.3 can be installated simply by clicking on “Update”. For major updates, e.g., from 1.3 to 2.0, you must download Juxtapost from the download area again.
Generator
Generator is used for building new template folders based on the template description file and your desired settings for border width, roundness, spacing, padding and document width. The Generator action is described in one of the videos over at the Instruction videos.
The template description file is a plain text file called “JuxWebTemplates.txt” and is a textual description of all templates:
B(3,2)B(1,1)B(2,3)B(2,1)B(3,1)HBOX(B(3,2),B(3,2))HBOX(B(2,3),B(2,3))HBOX(B(1,2),B(1,2))HBOX(B(1,1),B(1,1))HBOX(B(3,2),B(1,1))etc
Each line is a template structure describing how boxes of different proportions are nestled. In its simplest form, B(x,y) represents a box with proportions x:y so that, e.g., B(1,1) is a square box and B(2,3) is a vertical box with proportions 3:2. To put two boxes B1 and B2 next to each other, use HBOX(B1,B2). To put them above each other, use VBOX(B1,B2).
Example: on the right is a template described by HBOX(B(2,3),VBOX(B(3,2),B(3,2)),B(2,3))
When Generator runs, it builds a PSD-file for each template structure, giving them a sequential name like Template-37 followed by a string of H, V and S, indicating the orientation of the holes (Horizontal, Vertical, and Square). Also saved are icon files, used when suggesting templates in the collage building process. Juxtapost is clever enough to recognize when a template can be used horizontally or vertically flipped.
Style
The Style action lets you modify border and background color on your finished collage. Background color is normally black or white, but you can also specify your own color with a 6-digit hex string, e.g., ff0000 for red.
If you have been using a template with no borders, the Borders section of the Style window will be disabled (shown right). Otherwise, you can turn off borders here, or change their color.
Background and border settings are remembered till you invoke the Style action again.
Save
The save command temporarily flattens the collage and lets you save a JPEG file. Apart from the obvious setting of file name and destination folder, you can also change the quality setting for the JPEG file: 100 is no compression while 70 is probably sufficient for web publishing. Additionally, you can sharpen the collage. Most images, when shrunk down to a few hundred pixels, benefits from a bit of sharpening and we’ve found that the default settings do a decent job.
Once the JPEG file has been saved, it is up to you to save the PSD file. If you think you might go back and make changes, you must save the PSD file as the JPEG file has lost all the layer information.
Note: the Save command will warn you if it finds an image not covering its hole, most likely a result of you having moved the image around the hole too far. Unless you know what you are doing, it is then best to cancel the Save operation and correct the misaligned images with the Drop command (see below).
Drop
If you have already created a collage, the images have already been “dropped” into the holes. You can select an image and press “Drop” again if you have moved the image too far out of its hole. Juxtapost will then move the image back, as little as possible, to cover up the hole again.
You can also Drop an image into a hole, already occupied by another image. To do this, right click on an image in Bridge and select “Juxtapost!”. When the template selections appear, press the “Place” button. This will place the image on top of the collage. Now you can move it into position over the hole and press “Drop”. If you find it difficult to “aim”, i.e., to avoid dropping it into another hole you can either (a) make the image smaller before you drop it or (b) use the Swap action, described below.
Release
Release does the opposite of Drop, it releases an image from the hole. If several images have been selected, they are all released.
Swap
This action will swap the two currently selected images so that image 1 moves to image 2′s location and vice versa. This is particulary useful for moving images around the collage. As a special case, if one of the two layers selected is a hole and the other is an image, the image will be dropped into the hole. This is useful if you quickly need to send an image to a particular hole.
Delete
Removes the image(s) currently selected. Since CS4 you can now use the Delete key as a shortcut, even if you are not working with the Move tool.
Enlarge
Enlarges the selected image(s) 133%. The percentage has been chosen as to cancel the Shrink operation, when they are used after one another. The transform tool (Cmd-T, or ctrl-T in Windows) is also useful for arbitrary scaling of images but remember to hold the shift key down to maintain the aspect ratio.
Shrink
Shrinks the selected image(s) by 75%. The percentage has been choses as to cancel the Enlarge operation mentioned previously.