Adobe Lightroom and using automator

[kittierue]

I hope someone can help me with this. Here's a description of the Automator workflow and the error message I'm receiving.

As a preface, I'm a photographer shooting RAW files. LR (Lightroom) has the ability to build a set of contact sheets as pdf files. The rub is that the labs all print jpg's! The solution was to use Automator to build a print workflow automation to convert the pdf files to images and put them in a different folder. So here are my details:

1- Render pdf pages as images
2- Rename the file to a sequential number (1_1, etc)
3- Apply Colorsync profile to images
4- New Folder ("Contact Pages" folder inside of "3 Working" folder on Desktop of Kittie.

The automator log shows every step completing, and then it gets to
"New Folder" is running.
"New Folder" is stopped.
"An error (Can't make <<class cfol>>"Contact Pages" of <<class cfol>> "3 Working" of <<class cfol>> "Desktop" of item "kittie" of application "Finder" into type alieas. (-1700)) occurred.

In order to trap the error, I had to use this action as the very first one, however the failure is the same - an empty folder and an error message:
Get Specified Finder items. This is the folder I had LR place the pdf image it created from the print pdf dialog. (save as pdf)

Okay, it gets odd here. This pdf plug-in worked for me in July when I first tried it. Loved it! Now, it fails. I'm getting frustrated, because I'm thinking that the failure is in converting the pdf files into images, yet that step completes. It's the new folder part that fails. Everytime. Any assistance would save me much keyboarding and wrist pain. Thank you so much!

Kittie Rue (an old OLD mainframe person turned photographer and artist)

 

[kittierue]

Wow! I guess nobody is having any problems like the one I'm having... Oh well. It worked really well just enough for me to want to make it part of my workflow. I was actually getting excited about using Lightroom again.

Thanks to all 6 of you who viewed. If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear it. Meanwhile, work is piling up and I need to go do it manually.

Kittie

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

Hi kittierue and welcome,

You could try the following to see if it fixes up this issue.

Navigate to:

YourHomeDirectory -> Library -> Caches

Drag this folder and its contents to your Trash but DON'T empty the Trash just yet.

Log out and back in or restart your Mac. Test the workflow. If the problem is fixed then you can empty the Trash. If the error persists, go to:

YourHomeDirectory -> Library -> Preferences

Drag the Preferences folder to your Desktop then log out/restart your Mac. Test the workflow. If it works properly quit all open apps, then drag the Preferences folder back into:

YourHomeDirectory -> Library

You will be asked if you want to replace the folder already found at this location. Click "Replace" and then locate the following .plist in the Preferences folder:

com.apple.Automator.plist

Drag the .plist to your Trash and logout/restart and test the workflow again. You can empty the Trash now.

If none of the above have any effect, please let me know ...




 

[kittierue]

Thank you! I went through the list you gave me.
Did not work: YourHomeDirectory -> Library -> Caches
Drag this folder and its contents to your Trash

Did not work: YourHomeDirectory -> Library -> Preferences
Drag the Preferences folder to your Desktop then log out/restart your Mac. Test the workflow.
>>> Even though this didn't work, I put the preferences back into the Library as I couldn't bear to try to get my desktop back to my liking. I hope I didn't screw anything up.

Did not work: com.apple.Automator.plist
Drag the .plist to your Trash and logout/restart and test the workflow again.

I was so hopeful! Thank you anyway.

Kittie

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

Have a look in YourHomeDirectory -> Library -> Preferences and see if there's a .plist for Adobe Lightroom ... may look like this ... com.adobelightroom.plist ... or similiar.

If it's there I would be tempted to try my previous advice but substitute the com.apple.automator.plist for the adobe lightroom .plist ...

You may even need to try the advice with both those .plists being removed ... just try the adobe one first though. Don't forget to logout/restart each time too ...




 

[Walrus666]

Hello, perhaps if you can send us the workflow, we might be able to make it work.

 

[kittierue]

I'm going to try getting rid of the LR .plist and retry the workflow. In the meantime here's the exact setup that I have.

Automator 1.0.4
LR 1.1
PowerBook 1.67 GHz G4, OS 10.4.9, 1.5G DDR SDRAM


Here is the workflow:
In Automator, I've got a workflow that is named PDF2JPG.
Step 1 is Render pdf as images: 300 dpi, 2nd bar from right on compression.
Step 2 is Apply Colorsync profile set to sRGB.
Step 3 is New folder and the name of the folder is PDF2JPG_results.
File-Save As-Plugin for Print.

In LR (Lightroom), I send my files to the Print module. I select the contact sheet template I wish to use, click on the Print button, click on PDF button from the print dialog; select the PDF2JPG plugin.

LR renders the pdf pages, and when it completes, I see Automator launch. Step 1 completes, Step 2 completes, and Step 3 fails. With the flow as I've shown you, the dialog box at failure only flashes for a second and then automator finishes.

To capture the error, I've had to choose save as PDF from the LR print dialog. From there, I open automator and my script. I drag the pdf output from LR to the script and at that point I can see in the log that Step 3 has failed. It is failing with -1700 error, and also yesterday it failed with a "cannot convert the data" message. Always in step 3.

I hope this helps describe what's happening to me.

I currently have ~27G free and the failure occurs on one pdf page or 20. One image on the pdf page or 12.

Thank you for looking at this bewildering scenario with me.

Kittie

 

[kittierue]

Spawn: Do you mean to rename the com.apple.automator.plist to the adobe lightroom.plist name, or to put adobe.lightroom.plist in the trash?

Kittie

 

[kittierue]

Trashing the adobe.lightroom.plist didn't help. I did notice before restarting that I was seeing this on the menus...

Funny, Dreamweaver was totally okay, but Safari and LR were missing letters as in this picture. Also the Apple menu to shutdown, and the Filevault menu.

That says to me that I must have been really out of memory, or the fonts are messed up. Nah. Can't be that.

Kittie

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

Spawn: Do you mean to rename the com.apple.automator.plist to the adobe lightroom.plist name, or to put adobe.lightroom.plist in the trash?

Kittie

Hi Kittie,

I suggested you relocate the adobe.lightroom.plist to the Trash but don't empty the Trash in case you need to put the plist back where it came from. If removing the adobe.lightroom.plist file fixes the problem then it's safe to empty the Trash then. If removing the plist causes further problems then return it to it's original folder.

 

[kittierue]

Hey SD, That's what I thought you meant, so I did put adobe.lightroom.plist in the trash. No difference.

Is it possible to uninstall and reinstall automator? Would that be likely to help?

Kittie

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

I don't know, I'm sorry ... you say that this Workflow was actually working for a while?

 

[Walrus666]

I tried your worflow as an application on my Mac and it works.
I noticed your snapshot. I suggest checking your fonts out. Bad fonts can cause crashes.
Here's how- http://www.apple.com/pro/tips/badfonts.html

 

[kittierue]

RESOLVED: Adobe Lightroom and using automator

Update on LR and Automator "render pdf as images"

I sucked it up and took my laptop to the Apple store yesterday. I use Filevault on my main (only user) for my PowerBook. This is the problem.

When the technician ran my pdf plug-in from LR, and SAVED TO AN EXTERNAL DRIVE, or directly to the Macintosh HD (basically any location OUTSIDE the filevault Kittie folder) the process produced what it was supposed to produce.

The key is that anytime I tried to save to a location contained withing user Kittie, the process fails. I have to turn Filevault off, but the tech is worried about further corruption, so what I'm preparing to do now is to back up my whole system to an external drive. Then I'll take my laptop back to the store and they will restore/repair my main disk.

Since I only power off once or twice a week, Filevault almost always runs. The technician said that they don't recommend filevault be turned on because it can introduce corruption by compressing and decompressing files repeatedly.

I will be instituting a weekly backup routine using SuperDuper. I hope MacJanitor will do the necessary cleaning and compressing of harddrive space that Filevault was doing for me!

Thanks to everyone who put thought into this whole deal. (ordeal)

My Regards,
Kittie