rules of third script or action?

[Lasse]

Hi
Is it posible to make an action that positions the layercontent within a selection by the rules of third?
Like if i write some text and then makes a custom selection that i whants the rule of thirds to be used within. Making guidelines dosent work since they are positioned after the hole paper size.
Can this be done in some clever way in eather an action or script and if its going to be a script is there anyone out there with the time and skill that would like to give it a try?

/Lasse

[Lasse]

It could might be done by making a transform of the selection that the user have made before runing the script/action and then use the arow to position it acording to the selection.
I think it needs to be a script since i cant get an action to record the positioning.

/Lasse

[Klaatu Baradda]

Originally Posted by Lasse

Is it posible to make an action that positions the layercontent within a selection by the rules of third?

Greetings Lasse,
It seems that no one in all this time had an answer for your question and perhaps you solved it on your own already. However, if you haven't then Good News! The simple answer to your question is, "YES!"

However, each of the 4 positions of the Rule of Thirds will have to be a separate Action. Certainly, this can be made more sophisticated through a Script but the Actions work well enough on their own (especially in Button Mode).

You're right about using the Transform Selection function. However, you will also need to Insert Menu Item(s) from the Actions flyout menu.

Here's how to create one for the Upper Left position:

1) Make your selection (over your layer object)
2) Go to Select>Transform Selection...
3) In the Options Bar on the left, click on the Reference Point Location (the small grid of squares) in the Upper Left Corner to anchor your transformation from here.
4) In the Width box enter 66.666% and do the same for the Height box then press Enter twice.
5) Now, go to Layer>Arrange Layers To Selection and choose Vertical Centers and then go here again and choose Horizontal Centers. These two commands will need to be the Insert Menu Item(s) for your Action (two steps).

If you want to finesse your Action so that your original selection remains after the Action is finished, start by making an Alpha Channel of the selection FIRST, then as the last 2 steps, make the Alpha Channel a selection and delete the channel (this way the original selection stays if you want to do anything else with it, like run another Action that moves it to a different position).

The other Rule of Thirds positions are simply copies of this Action with the Transform Selection choosing a different Reference Point Location corner.

This was a great idea! We had fun trying to figure out how to accomplish this. Hope it's still useful to you.