Tips for importing from Photoshop

[jason]

Importing from a Photoshop PSD file is a very helpful feature in Storyboard Designer but here are a few tips to make it a smoother process

- Use Photoshop's groups for create layers in Designer. Photoshop's layers map directly to a control rather than a layer in Storyboard, since a Photoshop layer usually only has one image on it. You can create groups in Photoshop to group your common pieces, these groups will map directly to a layer in Designer. So a group containing a number of layers in Photoshop will become a layer with multiple controls when imported into Designer.

- Name each layer and group in Photoshop. It just makes it nice to have descriptive names rather than 100 files named layerXXX.png after the import.

- Every group that is visible in Photoshop will become a layer that is part of the default screen1. Any hidden group will become a layer that can be used, but not associated with any screen by default.

- Any Photoshop layer that isn’t part of a group will be added to a default layer (Layer1) when imported.

- Layer effects will be lost on import. To solve this first save your PSD file to another location in case you need to later edit the layer effect and re-import the PSD. Now run the script "Flatten all layer effects" found under the file menu. After this import the PSD file and it will look identical to the PSD file.

[jason]

Also you can watch this tutorial video for a quick overview of importing PSD files

http://cranksoftware.com/videos?tubepress_video=Loin5Kj84y8

[cguthrie]

This is great, thanks! I have a question. I've been messing with this a lot over the last few weeks. If I have multiple files to represent multiple screens, can I import something such that it comes in as a layer or a screen, instead of a brand new .gde file? I've been using the 'import images only' option and rearranging once I get there, because that works for my current purposes, but in the future I would dearly love to somehow specify 'import as new screen' or 'import as new layer'

thanks!

[jason]

Support for importing multiple PSD files into a single gde is supported in version 1.3. Storyboard version 1.3 is now in beta and can be download on the same site you downloaded your evaluation from, just scroll down some.

You can see a video of it here :
http://www.youtube.com/user/CrankSoftware#p/u/0/19nVPRqYhRI

Jason

[cguthrie]

Thanks Jason! So is there a way to have two versions of crank on my computer. I'd like to be able to go back and forth if necessary. I tried to just install it in to another directory, but all of my shortcuts stopped working and such. Are there environment variables that I can set using command line?

Thanks!
cguthrie

[jason]

There should be no issue with having 2 installs in different directories. I usually have multiple install just with the version number at the end (i.e. /Program Files/Crank Software1.3/)

At the end of the install you should not create the shortcuts since it will override your existing ones. Probably best to go create them yourself.