Graphic Design Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for Graphic Design professionals, students, and enthusiasts. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I'm currently working on a graphic, where as soon as I update the image (save the file), the window updates itself. However, every time I want to save, I have to switch the file from a PSD to a PNG, set the compression, etc. I'm hoping there's an option to just Ctrl + S, and have the .png's file update automatically.
I have tried "Quick Export as PNG" but that doesn't actually save a file anywhere. Anyone have any advice?
Well, the best, easiest, coolest, fastest way I could ever find of saving as a PNG without confirmation or any other kind of dialog is:
...now, whatever changes you make to your document, when Playing that action it will automatically save it as a PNG over the file that you saved at step 4. To make things even faster you can :
Clean and fast (tested).
What you need is to create and save an action, tie it to a combination of keys and press them anytime you need to export.
I don't have PhotoShop on this computer and when I have it I can't access StackExchange, so I hope someone can chime in and detail the limitations and procedure of this method.
Meanwhile, you can read https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/a/29928/15541 and hope it's still valid for your PhotoShop version.
Not everything can be recorded on actions, but once created, an action can be edited from the actions menu by adding specific menu commands like "save as" or "export".
What you need is a droplet.
Droplets are drag-and-drop mini-applications — essentially applets — in macro form that can exist outside Photoshop on your desktop, on your taskbar, or within a folder. They’re always available, so you can apply them to any image files you want. Think of them as batches waiting to happen.
You just need to drag the file or files that you want to process onto the droplet. Photoshop doesn’t even have to be open at the time. When you drop the file or files, the droplet opens Photoshop and carries out the steps in the action embedded in the droplet’s instructions. You must use an existing action as the core of the droplet.
To create a droplet, follow these steps:
Choose File→Automate→Create Droplet.
The Create Droplet dialog box opens.
In the Save Droplet In area, click the Choose button and enter a name and location on your hard drive for the droplet application. (Don't worry, you will be able to select where will your processed images will save at in a further step)
The location isn’t of overriding importance because after you create the droplet, you can drag it to your desktop, a toolbar, or wherever you like.
The rest of the Create Droplet dialog box is the same as the Batch dialog box, except that you don’t have to specify a source. Droplets use the files dropped on them as their source files.
In the Play area, select the actions set, action, and options. (this is the only confusing bit if you are not used to actions, but in few words you gotta have an action previously recorded with all the steps you want your images to go through every time you drop a file on the droplet)
Select a destination from the Destination pop-up menu.
Specify any file-naming options you want.
Specify how Photoshop should process errors.
When you finish, click OK to create the droplet.
To use the droplet, just select the file, files, or folders that you want to process and drag them to the droplet applet.
You can just CMD+S a PNG. A few points things you need to do first:
First make sure the file already is a PNG. So either open a PNG or Save As a PNG first
Make sure there are no layers. As soon as your file has layers it will try and Save As a PSD, unless it already is a format that supports layers (PNG doesn't). So Layer -> Flatten Imageif you have any layers.
So all you need to do is make sure the file already is a PNG then every time you want to save, quickly flatten the image, Save then Undo the flattening.
If you have Photoshop CC you could group all your layers and name the group the name of your file with a .png at the end. For example image.png. The go to File > Generate > Image Assets now it'll save your PNG every time you make changes to any of the layers in the group.
[X] Do not ask againcheckbox on the PNG format options popup