Reply To: Dynamic PSD Template question

[Damon BellKeymaster]

There are no rules for how you have to name layers or actions for dynamic tempaltes.

Dynamic templates just use actions to perform changes on the templates. How the actions accomplish this is completely up to you, including how to name any extra layers or ow to name the actions.  In the CSV, you just tell it which action to run for each player.

For layer styles, there are 2 ways to do it.

1. You can set up actions to change the colors, gradients, or anything else in the layer style.  You would need an action for each color. The actions would be 2 step actions.  First step selects the SPA text layer. Second step edits the layer style. So you would have an action for each color. then in the CSV you would specify which action to run each time.

I don’t like method 1 because if you want to change how the layer styles look then you will need to make new actions.  Also, with method 2, you would edit the PSD layers to change the layer styles.

Method 2 (preferred for me) – You would set up the template with “dummy” text layers that are no visible in the design. Each text layer is set up with layer styles for each color. Then you will need an action for each that selects the dummy text layer, copies the layer style, select the SPA text layer, pastes the layer style. Then in the CSV, yo just tell it which action to run for each image.

See this video. I specifically show the setup for method 2 as I described.  It may help if you had one of the templates to follow along in the video too. The volleyball template I show in the beginning of the video is only $24 with the Platinum discount. I designed this template specifically as an example for how to do what you are are asking about. The template comes with the photoshop action too so you can see exactly how to do that. In my example, I used the glow in the layer style. Yours would be set up the same but using gradients as you want.