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Saturday, November 5, 2011

What is a Data Set?

It dawns on me that not everyone may know what I am talking about when it comes to creating Data Sets.  These are files made in a program like Microsoft Excel, exported as a .CSV and imported into Photoshop to provide layer switches based on specific names.


I dont want to scare anyone off but its hard and boring work with lots of hidden pitfalls.  Making mistakes results in cryptic errors that offer very little help in fixing the problems.  But if you can figure it out, it has a lot of power for making lots of complex cards very quickly.


Here are two links to a Tutorial on Data Sets made by my friend Anthony Gill. You will need to watch them in order or they wont make sence:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBpClgvDiSo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrplbHNHOqg


Happy designing!

2 comments:

  1. Huh, I didn't know about that. The version of Photoshop I use at home is old enough that it doesn't have that functionality, but that's pretty cool. Reading about it, it sounds pretty simple and straightforward, but I suppose there are always niggling little problems that pop up in practice.

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  2. Yeah...its really finicky. If you are missing any lines in the Data Set that doesn't exist as a Layer in Photoshop, it gives an error. If you have a blank space in the data set, it gives an error. The real problem is that Photoshop doesn't give an error that has useful information to help track down the problem.

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