Tutorials | Image Averaging Photoshop Script

If you've tried image averaging then you know the fiddly bit is setting the opacity for each of the layers in your stack.

Well, even that is no longer an issue as I've written a small script which calculates and sets the opacity for all the layers in the a document then optionally merges the layers down to a single layer - You'll want to do that if you don't want your PSD to be massive!

Once the script has run, you can get on with the rest of the post processing as normal.

Download

The script is in a zip file along with a readme.txt document. You can download the zip from here: -

 (Image_Averaging_Layers_v1.0.0.zip / 1.9KB / 3084 downloads)

Install 

1. Locate your PresetsScripts folder in the Photoshop install folder.
   
   For example: -
   

   XP / Vista (32bit) / Win 7 (32bit) :
         C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS5\Presets\Scripts

   32bit CS5 on Vista (64bit) / Win 7 (64bit) :
         C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS5\Presets\Scripts

   64bit CS5 on Vista (64bit) / Win 7 (64bit) :
         C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS5\Presets\Scripts

   
   
   
2. Copy "Image Averaging Layers v1.0.0.jsx" from the zip file into this folder.
   
   
   
3. Restart Photoshop for it to find your new script. (You don't need to restart in CS6)
   
   
   **Optional**
   
   
   
4. Create an action which calls the script. (You might also want to assign a key combination to activate the action)
   
   Otherwise just run it manually from the Photoshop menu File | Scripts | Image Averaging Layers v1.0.0

Usage

Load the images to be averaged into a single Photoshop document (PSD).

E.G. if you have 5 frames, they should be stacked in one document as 5 separate layers.

I use Bridge to do this. I select the frames to be averaged then I go to the Tools menu, select Photoshop the select Load files into Photoshop Layers

Once you have your Photoshop document made up of the layers you can then run the action that calls the script.

You can also run the script manually in Photoshop by going to the File menu, select Scripts then select Image Averaging Layers v1.0.0.

Once the script is complete you can get on with the rest of your post-processing work flow as normal.

Happy averaging!

Neil.