The best part of creating “automation recipes” for Photos, is being able to have them easily accessible for when you need them. The Script Menu is a built-in OS X utility that provides contextual system-wide access to your favorite Automator workflows.
DO THIS ►Download and run the example workflows installer linked on the right column. When run, it will activate the Script Menu and populate it with the example workflows listed below.
When the Script Menu is activated, it displays both generic and application-specific workflows on its menu, available from the right side of the top menu bar (⬆ see above )
TIP: Workflows are executed when they are selected from this menu. To open a workflow menu item for editing, simply hold down the Option key when selecting it from the menu. To view the workflow file on the desktop, hold down the Shift key when selecting it from the menu.
Example Workflows
The following is a list of the example workflows. Use them “as is” or open them in Automator and edit the settings and actions to suite your needs.
Photos workflows:
Play Narrated Slideshow with Selection • Select a group of photos that have descriptions and run this workflow to have a slideshow begin that uses the computer’s current system voice to read each image description before automatically advancing to the next image.
Show Selected Item in Maps • Select a single image in Photos that has embedded location data, and run this workflow. The Maps application will display the location for the selected image.
Export to Front Keynote Document • Select one or more images and run this workflow to automatically export copies of them to new slides added to the frontmost Keynote document. Each image will be scaled to fill the entire slide area.
Export to New Keynote Document • Select one or more images and run this workflow to automatically export copies of them to new slides added to a newly created Keynote document. Each image will be scaled to fill the entire slide area.
Quick Export • Select one or more photos and run this workflow to export copies of the selected images to disk. After the export is completed, the workflow will automatically switch to the Finder a select the exported files, making them ready for you to perform more actions (like AirDrop) with the exported files.
Quick Export with Sequential Names • This workflow is similar to the Quick Export workflow, but it instead prompts you for a name to be used in renaming the exported image files as a sequential sequence.
Choose Photos Image • This workflow is available from the Script Menu while in any application. When run, it will display an image picker window. Select a photo from your Photos library and the workflow will activate the Photos application and display the chosen image filling the window.
Take Photo with Tethered Camera • This system service is available from the Services Menu while in Photos. When run, it will cause a tethered camera to take a picture and import the snap into your Photos library. (TIP: see how to assign keyboard shortcut to the service)
Keynote workflows:
Update Images • If you used either of the “Export to Keynote” workflows described above to add images to a Keynote presentation, then this workflow can be used to update (replace) the placed images with copies of the latest versions of their related source images in your current Photos library.
New Slide with Chosen Image • This workflow for Keynote will prompt the user to pick an image from the Photos library to be used to create a new image slide. The resulting imported image can later be updated using the “Update Images” workflow.
Show Image in Keynote • This script will display in Photos, the source master image for the image on the current slide in Keynote. If the current slide contains more than one image, a numbered overlay will be displayed on each image, after which you will enter the index of the image whose master you wish to view in Photos. NOTE: this script only works with Keynote images that have been placed using one of the “Export to Keynote…” workflows.
The “Ask for Photos Helper” action
There is a known issue that occurs when the “Ask for Photos” action precedes the “Display Referenced Photo” action in a workflow. If the image chosen from the media picker (presented by the “Ask for Photos” action) has been previously edited, an incompatible file reference will passed as input to the “Display Referenced Photo” action, causing an error to occur.
The workflows examples installer provided on this website will install a special Automator action titled “Ask for Photos Helper” that you will place between the “Ask for Photos” action and the “Display Referenced Photo” action in your workflows. (⬇ see below )
This action will attempt to resolve any incompatible file reference and pass the reference type expected by the “Display Referenced Photo” action. This “translation” action will resolve references for edited images, but it will not work when the Photos library contains duplicates of the photo to be referenced.
Compatibility with other actions
When the “Run AppleScript” or “Run JavaScript” actions are used in a workflows with the Photos actions, references may not pass between the actions as expected. To respolve this issue, run the installer found on this page. This applet will install two special conversion actions to enable references to Photos items to be shared between other actions that accept and output AppleScript objects.