You’re at the final stage of your approvals process – woohoo! Now all that’s left is to run the Image Approvals Script which will automatically separate your stills into Killed, Approved and Approved Selects folders so that you don’t have to do this manually.
Please note that this script is for use on laptops and computers running Windows. If your device is running a Mac OS, please follow this guide instead.
Checks!
Before we do anything, you need to triple check your folder structures and filenames are as described in Step 1 so that the Script doesn’t run into any problems.
Do not run the script if your folders and filenames do not follow these protocols. If you are unsure, contact your Image Approvals account manager.
Checking Filenames
A quick way to check filenames is to open the “All Images” spreadsheet report and do a quick scroll through them to make sure none of the filenames look irregular.
Most importantly, you must check for duplicate filenames and can do so quickly by doing the following:
- Select the first column
- Click Conditional Formatting > Highlight Cells Rule > Duplicate Values then click OK.
- Excel will now highlight any cells with duplicate values. The only cells that should be highlighted are those containing Image Name and Day marked as done information.
If you don’t have any duplicate filenames, fantastic! Move onto the next step below. If you do have duplicate filenames, contact your Image Approvals account manager for assistance on how to proceed.
Making lists
We now need to let the Script know exactly which images are killed, approved, or approved and also marked as a select.
Step 1
Open Windows Notepad, and open the spreadsheet of all the killed images for your production.
Step 2
Copy all of the filenames from the spreadsheet and paste them into Notepad.
Step 3
Save this file specifically with the uncapitalised filename, killedlist, in the parent folder of your images. Eg where all of your image folders for this production are stored.
Repeat the steps above with your approved and approved selects spreadsheets, creating a new NotePad file with each one and saving them as unkilledlist and unkilledselectslist respectively.
Now you have your lists, drop your Image Approvals account manager a message and request a copy of the Script. Once you’ve received it, move it into the same folder as your lists. Your folder should now look something like the below:
Backing up and making space
You’re almost ready to go! Because we are all about security when it comes to important files, it’s good practice to have a backup on another drive, so make sure you have one before going any further.
Next, make sure that you have enough space on the hard drive you are running the script on to hold a duplicate of your project. This is because the Script will copy and paste your images into the Killed, Approved and Approved Selects folders rather than move them. This is a safety feature just in case you’ve made a mistake anywhere along the way that causes an error.
Now for the cool bit…
We highly recommend running the script overnight. Especially if you have large numbers of images for it to search through and copy as this can take your computer a few hours to complete. If you are all ready to go, double click on the Script file and let it work its magic!
The next day…..
Et Voila! Now within each image folder, there will be folders named Killed, Approved and Approved Selects. In here you will find your images sorted accordingly.
Verifying success
It’s good practice to verify everything has worked as it should and the quickest way to do this is to make sure that the total number of images in the Killed and Approved folders matches the total number of images in the containing folder.
Don’t worry about the number in the Approved Selects folder – if the Killed and Approved folders are correct then this one will be too.
If you have followed everything correctly then you can now delete the images that appear in each folder outside of the Killed, Approved and Approved Selects folders as these are duplicates and now surplus to requirements.
Celebrate!
And you’re done! Your approvals are complete and your production’s images are now neatly named and organised in such a way that means you can find exactly what you need in seconds.
The more often you go through this process the quicker it will get and before you know it, you’ll be managing each production’s approvals within a small handful of easy hours!