importing psd files

mel58i wrote on 10/25/2006, 3:03 PM

I have made a photoshop image with several layers and saved as a psd file.
I thought I could bring it into vegas as a layered file and add animation to the seperate layers, but alas not - just get the "flattened" file.
Am I doing something wrong or is this as good as it gets?

Mel.

Comments

farss wrote on 10/25/2006, 3:24 PM

That's it as far as I know.

mel58i wrote on 10/25/2006, 3:26 PM

I thought if you saved as layers bob then vegas should be able to open up the layers - shame

Mel

rmack350 wrote on 10/25/2006, 5:02 PM

No, Vegas doesn't do that. However, with CS or CS2 there are ways to export all your layers as files. Then in Vegas you can select the bunch, right click and drag them all to the timeline and choose "add across tracks" from the context menu.

For several years in another NLE we had to import the photoshop file into AfterFX and break up the layers that way. It was the most automated way we could find to do it.

The method I described for you isn't too hard. It could be worse, you could be using a certain other NLE that supports the layers but crashes if you have too many.

Rob Mack

mel58i wrote on 10/26/2006, 2:26 AM

Thanks Rob, will just have to save each layer in PS and bring them in seperately. No great sweat, just like automation.

Mel.

rmack350 wrote on 10/26/2006, 10:43 AM

You have to settle for two steps of automation - the automated step where photoshop exports all your layers as files and the second step where you drag all the files at once onto the timeline.

It'd be nice if Vegas would handle layers in image files, but it doesn't. I can think of three layered image formats and I'm sure there are more: PSD, PNG (fireworks creates layered png files), XCF (Gimp). I'm pretty sure that whatever Corel is selling also supports layers (are they still using PCX?)

Maybe a real plugin to handle importing layered graphics would be in order.

Rob Mack