Yup ... a real PITA. We can import, after some prep, PSD layers for buttons in DVDA, so there is an awareness for this there, but sadly none for Vegas.

NOW, as I use PsP and it HAS scripting macros for all sorts of things that ot could produce PNGs from its own layers then I would be half-way there. But again, we have options for DVDA, surely some of scripting Gurus could get their "collective" heads around this then maybe, maybe . . .

The last 3 days I have compositing, in PsP, a 20 something layer project with Adjustment layers including levels, posterizer, Colour Balance . etc etc . . now, would it be great IF Vegas could then separate this lot into the things I actually wanted from it? Made Tracks out of the layers and attempted to use the Adjustment layers to suit? Well, . . sad huh?

I can here the "Cutters" around here mumbling: "We don't want MORE fluffy stuff to make Vegas more cumbersome!!" - Well, this might actually go to the other argument of what a Vegas user looks like: A graphic artist who WANTS some more way to be creative - easily - while remaining WITH & IN SONY Vegas.

A great question, Mel, that actually belies some options that lay a bit deeper than I think the question displays/shows on first read.

Hmmmm.....

Grazie

I must be the odd man out here.
I've done one project with a fair bit of PSD stuff going on and I ran PS and Vegas at the one time. In PSD switch layers on and off as needed. Save As appropriate file names and import into Vegas.
What I needed was text etc that changed colors over time.
By creating white text in PS and using gen media in Vegas to control the color of the text in the final render the whole thing became very simple to wrange.
I could use PS to control the "What" of the thing and the color of the gen media in Vegas to control the color of the text highlights.
Sorry I'm not explaining this well and it sounds inordinately complicated however this project had more revisions than I've had hot diners and it's still not done. They want this font, no doesn't work in that color. Then can you move all this over there and downsize the text and then changes the fond / color and oh no, the deal fell through with Pepsi so we need Coke cans. Around 30 layers in PS and 10 tracks in vegas with several parent/daughter composites going on. ALL Layers in PS and ALL tracks in Vegas meaningfully named, that really helped.

BUT it would have been WAY easier if I could select layers from the PSD file in Vegas, for sure. I'm just saying if you get well organised from the get go it ain't too bad without it.

Bob.

Bob, you start off with . . "I must be the odd man out here.

And then you finally conclude with "BUT it would have been WAY easier if I could select layers from the PSD file in Vegas, for sure.

Welllll. . . er yes, I think that IS our point. Well, it was mine anyway!

Grazie

I kinda knew you'd pick up on that........

However what was in my head at that point was that it's not necessary to jump through too many hoops. You don't have to delete layers in PS, just turn them off. You don't have to render out to PNGs either.
In fact in the project I was referring to having Vegas control the layers or else having the PS layers turn up as tracks would have made my life harder.

I've got each text item as a layer and each graphics element as a layer. If Vegas saw all the layers as tracks I'd have 30 tracks in Vegas. My 20 layers of text would turn up as 20 tracks which would make the compositing in Vegas pretty messy. With my workflow I only have one track in Vegas for all the text in the PSD. Better still all the PS stuff stays as vectors. That means I can bounce the PS file back to the client (a graphic artist) for him to make changes. When I get it back everything is intact and I can easily also make changes.

So on the one hand whant we've been asking for would be a big plus indeed. However you can really get PS and Vegas to play together very nicely as it stands. I used to go through the whole going from PS to png dance and it was a PIA. You can keep everything in PS as vectors, don't merge layers, maybe even use control layers in PS to make your task even easier and really get Vegas and PS humming along. Probably if I understood PS better I could have done this even easier. But the one thing I learned is not to think of PS as just a flat file image editor. I've grappled with PS for years and it's only recently that I've realised how unduly hard I was making my life.

Bob.

I want layers into tracks 'cos I want to manipulate & animate the layers in 3D space in Vegas and have video playing & weaving thru' em - yes?

Bob, you are telling me it is unnecessary to do something, when it is exactly what I WANT to achieve. LOL!!!

Regards

Grazie

You can animate the PS layers with what we've got.

Build your PS file. Switch layers off to leave just the ones that you want as tracks in Vegas, do Saves As and you should be good to go.
,
However if you want Vegas to control the vectors in a PS file for animation that's another story entirely. I don't think we'd get that even with what's being asked for. That would be very cool indeed however I suspect all we'd get is the layer(s) from PS turning up as rastered images with alpha channels.

Bob.

. .

"That would be very cool indeed however I suspect all we'd get is the layer(s) from PS turning up as rastered images with alpha channels."

That is EXACLTY what I want! I have now got my layers as PNGs with trannie BGs and areas ready to take all sorts of neat treatments. I don't WANT to switch off any layers . .I want them ALL. This ways I can be selective and er . . creative?

It is your: "Build your PS file. Switch layers off to leave just the ones that " Are you saying that at present one can BUILD a PSD and have Vegas use the Layers as tracks? I think not? Surely one PSD file is just ONE track? Vegas wont recog separate layers as tracks? And this is what this whole thread has been about.

Grazie

I'm only too well aware of the limitations of what we currently have.
What I'm trying to explain is how we can work within the confines of what we have today.

You do NOT need to create PNGs, that's doing more work than you need to!

Create Master.psd, say 4 layers with your various graphic elements.

Turn off all but layer1, Save As Track1.psd
Turn off all but layer2, Save As Track2.psd
repeat for all layers.

Bring those files PSD into Vegas as tracks and animate as needed.

Now if you need to change what you're animating it's pretty simple.

Go back to your Master.psd, make changes and repeat the Save As steps. Probably the Save As thing is scriptable in PS but I'm no PS expert.

For me at least the advantage of this approach bypassing the Save As PNG is significant. Every PSD file contains the whole thing, I can change resolution very easily too.

Bob.

Hell, this must be getting real tedious for those reading it . .

This is EXACLTY what I do do. The PNG thing is to preserve the trannie part. Whether I do a PsP png OR a PSD file from within PsP wont save me time.

What I am saying, is that I want this process to be automated - I don't want to do the "Bob-Tango".

I use PsP; it has its own scripting abilities; I'd like PsP to auto produce PNGs from those layers; making PNGs in PsP is doable - what I want is for this process to be made automatically. That is: Either scripts to make PNGs from my layers OR for Vegas to separate out the layers from a PS file created in PsP. As I keep saying, DVDA can cope with PS layers - albeit suffixed files - from a graphics package.

Grazie

>>I must be the odd man out here.

Nope. I do PSDs all the time and all works great. Very similar to what you described. Works great.

Yes - you can do the work and get in separate layers - and do each one separately to do it. I want the layers to come into Vegas automatically, separately FROM within the PSD file. Does this happen in PS? You can produce layers in PS, but to have EACH layer come into V as a track you need to do the work outlined above. I am saying that I'd like, as is nearly happening with DVDA, for this process to happen automatically.

Grazie

And so it goes on and on!
My method is, like Bob says, to turn off all layers except one, 'save as'. Repeat for all other layers. After 4 or 5 layers, it does get tedious.
Surely someone could write a script for Vegas, to take the PSD file and retrieve the layers - or is that asking too much as the script must undestand how PS packs the layers etc ?

Thanks Mel!

. . . . and to ANSWER your question (which I know I did):

"Is there any way of doing this without having to save individual layers and bringing them separately in Vegas?"

It is NO. However, there IS an almost teasingly tantalizingly "almost" process for DVDA. What I am adding is that maybe "Thems OOpstairs!" have an eye for this to happen.

What Bob did, from what I have read again and again, was to reiterate what he/you and I do. What you are asking for, understandably, is there a way for this process NOT to be necessary. Presently, there ain't one.

I don't understand why Bob just didn't say "No"?

Grazie

You do NOT need to create PNGs, that's doing more work than you need to!

Bob, I don't do it for the extra work, I do it to save on file size.
As an example, I just loaded a 366K PNG image in Photoshop and added 3 text layers, each with a drop shadow & bevel.
Saving each layer in PNG format resulted in file sizes of 333K each.
However, saving each layer as a PSD resulted in a file size of 1.6M each :-(
3 PNGs = 1 meg while 3 PSDs = 4.8 meg.
Thanks but, in the interest of saving space, I'll do the few extra steps needed (or do a batch conversion from PSD to PNG with IrfanView), especially when I'm working with one large image that has over 40 titles on it.

Mike

I don't understand why Bob just didn't say "No"?

Because the origina question was "Is there any way of doing this without having to save individual layers and bringing them seperately in Vegas? 7e at this end."

And the answer is YES!

You don't have to save individual layers and you don't have to export PNGs.

a) You can turn layers off in PS. Vegas doesn't see the layers that are turned off.

b) You don't need to save as PNG, Vegas will use the alpha data from your PSD file.

Now maybe that sounds like I'm splitting hairs but to me at least realising that has made a HUGE difference to my workflow. I've been doing what others have been for years, blindly exporting PNGs until one day I thought "I wonder, lets see if Vegas is smarter than I though" and yes it is.

Of course this isn't as good as having Vegas doing the layers to tracks but it's one heck of a lot better than what I've been doing for years. It's the best I have ot offer until SCS grants our wish and I hope by sharing this others might benefit.

Bob.

""I've been doing what others have been for years, blindly exporting PNGs until one day I thought I wonder, lets see if Vegas is smarter than I though" and yes it is."

OK, Bob, just HOW is Vegas "smarter"? Just exactly WHAT is Vegas doing that you thought previously it wouldn't do?

Regards

Grazie

Firstly I didn't even realise I could stick a PSD file on the T/L!
Yeah I know, dumb me! So I'd been exporting PNGs and that become a PIA because if I had to change something, more work and oftenly I'm runnning several jobs at once and the change request comes weeks after I've done the work. I've then got to try to remember how I did it, where's the PSD file etc, etc.

So having realised I could simply put the PSD file into Vegas it then dawned on me that maybe if I turned layers off in PS Vegas wouldn't see them and wow, that worked too.

Why this helps me is on one job I'm sending the PSD files backwards and forwards between me and the client. I just get the file back from the client, switch off layers and do my Save As thing. The Master PSD file remains intact. Switching a layer off is the same as muting a track in Vegas, it's still there, nothing lost. Before I'd been deleting layers and saving, and deleting a layer and saving. Trying to backtrace what I'd done was a nightmare when there's lots of elements and changes going on between me and the client.

Now the other nice thing was being able to keep PS and Vegas open and setup Vegas to release files when it looses focus. So then I can work in PS, Save As, switch focus to Vegas and there are my changes on the T/L.

Of course if it was just me creating my own graphics in PS then all the above probably is a bit more complex than you'd need to get your head around initially. It's when you've got complex PS files that others are revising that you need to bring into Vegas and split over tracks that it works pretty well all thing considered. So that was my revelation.

Now here's a question. Assuming SCS implemented our request for PSD layers as tracks into Vegas, how should it work?

I've thought about this a bit, the more I learn about PS the more I see some issues. PSD files contain more than just layers of flat btimaps, there's adjustment layers and a probably other kinds of layers that build parent - child relationships like we can in Vegas. What should happen to these layers in Vegas?

It wouldn't surprise me if the good boffins at SCS have looked at this and thought it way too hard to do the full deal. Maybe, just maybe we don't really need the full deal and what we want would be simple for them to do. If so we should tell them that.

Maybe we'd like something like we have in DVDA, we name the layers in PS to tell Vegas where to put them?

One other question too. What about those using PSP, if SCS came up with a solution that required us to have PS, would we be happy with that?

Bob.

"It wouldn't surprise me if the good boffins at SCS have looked at this and thought it way too hard to do the full deal. Maybe, just maybe we don't really need the full deal and what we want would be simple for them to do. If so we should tell them that."

The Major competitors handle PS layers fine.

Dave T2

The Major competitors handle PS layers fine.

OK, can you elaborate on that.
Which competitors (PPro and AE is a given I guess), FCP, Edius?
What exactly do they do with all the layer types from PS?

Bob.

OK. So the ONLY clever thing - for you - was that you realised that:

1 - Vegas could import PSD files

2 - By switching back to PS you could "mute" layers save THAT new PSD file and then import that "muted" version back into Vegas.

What I have been wanting was the option for ALL the layers to be brought into Vegas and have them imported onto their own separate tracks in the order they appear in the PSP file. And I have pointed at DVDA as an example of this being in the KB of SCS.

Yes I can save a PSP file as a PSD; have layers saved and import the same PSD file into Vegas.

The beauty of working in a graphics package is its ability to save, manipulate, move, promote<>demote, mask<>demask and apply levels and so on/to layers.

Your "revelation" that" . . it then dawned on me that maybe if I turned layers off in PS Vegas wouldn't see them and wow, that worked too." is only correct in as much as Vegas SEES the whole image - it doesn't know one or several layers are turned off, or come that matter, on. It is "blind" to the process. And THAT is my point. Vegas isn't graphically aware of the the turning off/on of your layers. It JUST sees the complete image - but that image may just have some layers turned off or on. So, it isn't that Vegas isn't seeing them -it doesn't even know their existence of them in first place! - Where as in DVDA, and saved with the "correct" suffix DVDA does.

Yes, yes, yes . . and at last!!! "Maybe we'd like something like we have in DVDA, we name the layers in PS to tell Vegas where to put them?" - u-huh . . .

And as I've said, using PSP, I can produce a PSD file with layers intact.

Well, just for fun it would be neat if Vegas could handle the saving of layers FROM PS with incremental suffix extensions that once imported INTO Vegas would have them dribbled down into new tracks. Fanciful of me? Yeah, well that's MY job! Now HOW this implemented . . ?

Grazie

Yes, the ones you listed. FC treats it as a sequence.

After effects allows you to import it either as a single file, a composition or individual layers.

Premiere handles it but I am not sure what it does since I don't use Premiere.

Dave T2

Yes, DaveT2, I think this was also at the back of my brain . . layers as compo tracks . . was it FCP? Or AE? . .

Go on Bob, you're on a mission now!

Grazie