User manual for Poserframes

Contents

Installing and updating Poserframes

  1. Download and unzip the software, if the latter isn’t done automatically. The resulting folder contains the main script Poserframes.jsx, the required Poserframes-Library folder and a folder with Photoshop action sets in files ending in .atn.

  2. Copy the script Poserframes.jsx to Photoshop’s scripts folder. On Mac it’s in /Applications/Photoshop 202x/Presets/Scripts and on Windows 10 it’s in C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop 202x\Presets\Scripts. You may have to change the permissions of this folder to copy the script there.

  3. Copy the Poserframes-Library folder into the same scripts folder, so it sits next to Poserframes.jsx.

  4. Restart Photoshop and make sure Poserframes shows up in the menu File/Automate.

  5. Install the Photoshop actions by double-clicking on the action files ending in .atn, or by clicking on the hamburger menu in the actions palette in Photoshop, choosing Load Actions… and then select all action files and click on Open.

If you want to update Poserframes you simply download the new version, replace Poserframes.jsx, replace the Poserframes-Library folder and replace your installed actions with the new ones.

How to use Poserframes

Poserframes can be run directly from File > Automate > Poserframes, but for most people the normal workflow is to use Photoshop actions.

Here is the practical way to work with it:

  1. Open an image in Photoshop.
  2. Run one of the supplied Poserframes actions, or run Poserframes from File > Automate.
  3. If the dialog appears, choose your settings and click Run With These Settings.
  4. If you want to reuse that exact look later, save it into an action.

The script supports both current recorded settings and older legacy-style recorded recipes, so older actions can still be opened and updated through the current dialog.

Poserframes has two main render modes:

  1. Fancy builds a scanner-mask style frame with a separate mask, negative, optional glyphs, scanner artifacts and other overlays.
  2. Clean Crop skips the scanner-mask rendering and produces a cleaner cropped border treatment.

Fancy mode gives you more styling options and more texture. Clean Crop is faster and simpler.

Editing recorded actions

Poserframes actions store the script settings inside the recorded Photoshop step. That means you can keep several actions, each with a different look.

To edit an existing Poserframes action:

  1. Expand the action in Photoshop Actions.
  2. Double-click the recorded script step named Poserframes.
  3. Edit values in the settings dialog.
  4. Click Update Action to save those settings back into that action step.

If you enable Save and close when done, the script saves and closes each image after rendering. Keep it disabled while experimenting.

Making new actions and droplets

You can duplicate one of the supplied actions and tweak it, or record a new one from scratch:

  1. Open an image.
  2. Create a new action and start recording.
  3. Run Poserframes from File/Automate.
  4. Choose settings in the dialog and click Run With These Settings.
  5. Stop recording.

For unattended processing, re-open the recorded Poserframes step, enable Save and close when done, then click Update Action.

If you want to build a droplet or batch process folders of images, use an action with Save and close when done enabled. If you leave that off, Photoshop will stop after each image and the automation will not be unattended.

Settings dialog reference

The current dialog is organized by workflow. The sections below describe what each control does from a user perspective.

Render Mode and Format

  1. Fancy uses the full scanner-mask workflow. This is the mode to use when you want mask shapes, negative overlays, optional edge glyphs, scanner artifacts and the most photographic character.
  2. Clean Crop uses crop borders instead of the scanner-mask workflow. It is more restrained and usually faster.
  3. Use This Format overrides Poserframes’ automatic format detection. The available choices are 2x3, 4x3, 6x7, 4x5 and square.

Leave the format on auto if your image already matches one of the standard film proportions. Force a format when you want to deliberately use, for example, a 6x7 look on a 4x3 image.

Scanner Mask and Negative Styles

These controls are only relevant in Fancy mode.

  1. Each format has its own Mask selector. That lets you choose a specific scanner mask family for 2x3, 4x3, 6x7, 4x5 and square.
  2. Where the library exposes separate negative families, Poserframes also shows dedicated Negative selectors. In the current dialog that means Square Negative and 4x3 Negative.
  3. Auto tells Poserframes to randomize within that format instead of locking a specific variant.
  4. Menu labels come from the library entry when available, so the displayed names reflect the current installed Poserframes library.

Use fixed variants when you want repeatability. Use Auto when you want the action to produce slightly different frames each run.

Scanner Mask Scale (Fancy mode)

Scanner Mask Scale is the main way to make the rendered mask thinner or thicker in Fancy mode.

  1. Short-Side Scale changes the mask size on the image’s short axis.
  2. Long-Side Scale changes the mask size on the image’s long axis.
  3. The allowed range is 0.50 to 1.50.
  4. 1.00 means no change.
  5. Values above 1.00 make the mask expand on that axis.
  6. Values below 1.00 make the mask contract on that axis.

Changing mask scale does more than alter border thickness. It also changes where the image can sit relative to the mask, so movement continues to behave sensibly even when the mask is scaled larger or smaller.

Crop Border Settings

These controls are used in Clean Crop mode.

  1. Border Widths lets you define a base border width separately for 2x3, 4x3, 6x7, 4x5 and square images.
  2. Short-Side Factor changes how thick the border is on the short side relative to the long side.
  3. The Short-Side Factor is entered as a decimal value. 1.00 keeps the default proportion, values below 1.00 make the short side thinner and values above 1.00 make it thicker.

If you want a more obviously asymmetrical crop-frame look, start by increasing Short-Side Factor a little and then fine-tune the per-format border widths.

Shared Settings: Look

These controls affect the overall character of the render.

  1. Halation adds a glow-like effect to bright image areas along the negative rebate.
  2. Burn Negative Edges lightens the mid tones of the inner negative edge.
  3. Transparent Outside Mask makes the area outside the rendered mask transparent instead of opaque. Use a file format that supports transparency if you want to preserve that result.
  4. Negative Glyphs renders edge markings when the chosen library variant provides glyph paths.
  5. Rebate Grain controls whether fine grain is added to the rebate. Off disables it, On adds it throughout the rebate, and Halation Only limits it to the halation areas.
  6. Blackpoint Adjustment shifts the automatically derived rebate black point when the rebate looks too dark or too light for the image.

This block is where most of the visual character comes from. If you want a quick way to make Poserframes subtler, start by reducing this section before changing geometry.

Shared Settings: Movement

Movement controls where the image sits inside the frame.

  1. Min Long and Max Long define the random movement range on the axis tied to the image’s long side.
  2. Min Short and Max Short do the same for the short side.
  3. Each value is effectively a percentage of the movement available for that format and variant.
  4. Setting a min and max to the same number gives you a fixed placement instead of a random one.
  5. Setting both values to 0 keeps the image centered on that axis.
  6. Direction controls the bias of the movement. Random allows either diagonal direction, while Toward Bottom/Left and Toward Top/Right bias the offset in a consistent direction.

Movement interacts with the chosen format and, in Fancy mode, with the selected mask geometry. The same movement settings can therefore feel different across formats and variants.

Shared Settings: Mattes (Film Frame Edges)

The four matte controls change the apparent film-frame edge on each side.

  1. Frame Top adjusts the top edge.
  2. Frame Right adjusts the right edge.
  3. Frame Bottom adjusts the bottom edge.
  4. Frame Left adjusts the left edge.

Positive and negative values push the frame edge in opposite directions, which lets you make the border feel more centered, more uneven or more like an off-register scan.

Shared Settings: Film Burn

Film Burn adds a simulated first-frame light leak.

  1. Render Film Burn turns the effect on or off.
  2. Ragged Film Burn Edge chooses the more torn, irregular burn edge.
  3. Film Burn Min Reach sets the minimum amount of the frame the burn may cover.
  4. Film Burn Max Reach sets the maximum amount of the frame the burn may cover.

If Render Film Burn is off, the other film-burn controls do nothing. If min and max reach are the same, the reach becomes fixed instead of random.

Save behavior

  1. Save and close when done controls whether output is saved and the document is closed after each run.
  2. Keep this disabled while developing a look or testing settings.

How Poserframes uses aspect ratios

By default, Poserframes reads your image aspect ratio and maps it to the nearest of the built-in formats: 2x3, 4x3, 6x7, 4x5 or square.

That format choice affects several things at once:

  1. Which mask and negative libraries are used.
  2. Which crop border width setting applies in Clean Crop mode.
  3. Which edge softness profile is used.
  4. How movement is resolved.

If your source image is not close to one of the standard proportions, Poserframes still works by stretching the chosen geometry to fit the document. That is why forcing a format can be useful as a creative choice rather than just a corrective one.

How Poserframes uses movement

Poserframes always starts from a centered image position. The movement settings then tell the script how much of the available offset range it may use.

The important thing to understand is that available movement is not a fixed number of pixels. It depends on the chosen format, the active variant and, in Fancy mode, the current mask scale. The sliders therefore behave like percentages of the available room, not like absolute measurements.

Examples:

  1. Min Long = 50, Max Long = 50 means the image always moves to the middle of the available long-axis range.
  2. Min Long = 10, Max Long = 80 means the script chooses a random long-axis offset between 10% and 80% of the available range.
  3. Min Long = 0, Max Long = 0 keeps the image centered on that axis.
  4. Min Long = 100, Max Long = 100 pushes the image to the edge of the available range on that axis.

Direction bias is applied after the magnitude has been chosen, so it affects where the image goes, not how strong the offset is.

Advanced script-only settings

Some settings still live only at the top of Poserframes.jsx. They are not part of the dialog, but they remain active every time the script runs.

Core rendering defaults

  1. force_8_bit converts 16-bit documents to 8-bit before running artifact-building filters that require that mode.
  2. feather_factor_2x3, feather_factor_4x3, feather_factor_6x7_square and feather_factor_4x5 control how soft the mask and rebate edges are for each format. Lower numbers give more feathering.
  3. blending_factor controls how softly the rebate blends into the image.
  4. mask_flip_probability controls how often scanner masks are rotated 180 degrees.
  5. neg_rotation controls the maximum random rotation applied to the negative.

Color and density analysis

  1. color_check_threshold controls how sensitive Poserframes is when deciding whether an image should behave as color or black and white.
  2. blackpoint_threshold controls how the script determines the visual black point used for rebate styling.
  3. green_burn_odds controls how often the film burn shifts into the green-yellow palette instead of the orange-red palette.

Glyph and path character

  1. glyphs_brightness_factor and glyphs_saturation_factor change the appearance of rendered negative glyphs.
  2. path_jitter_negative, path_jitter_mask, path_jitter_shadow, path_jitter_subshadow, path_jitter_tabs and path_jitter_glyphs add organic irregularity to the vector paths used to build each component.

If you edit these values manually, keep the variable names and Javascript syntax intact.

Using Poserframes in legacy mode

Legacy mode bypasses the settings dialog and ignores recorded action settings. Instead, the script uses the hard-coded runtime values declared near the top of Poserframes.jsx.

This is mainly useful if you want a fixed script setup that never opens the dialog and never depends on action-stored settings.

To begin using legacy mode, change legacy to:

var legacy = true;

If you want the script to save the images after it’s run change the setting save to this:

var save = true;

When legacy is false, Poserframes uses the current dialog and recorded-action workflow instead.

Tips and tricks