I've been trying to learn PS for the last week and read zillions of websites on tutorials, but I'm still struggling.  I'm not sure this is even possible so I wouldn't mind some advice if possible.

I have this idea in my head that all my movie thumbnails, or even the larger movie images themselves, would look really good with the crystal/aqua/glassy look.  However, there's a few issues:

- the thumbnails are generated from the larger jpegs
- there are 1000+ thumbnails
- all thumbnails are porportionally sized from the originals, and thus
- all images can be different sizes.

Is it possible to create some sort of macro or mask thing that could be kept as a template and applied to any given jpeg image?  If I wanted to apply this look to the original jpegs, then I'd never have to worry about the thumbnails since they would inherit the look any time they were created.  However, they're all different sizes so I expect the macro would need to resize each image first before applying any other changes to it.  

This is for a home theatre front-end that displays my movie collection on my highdef TV (720p), either as a large image with the movie details beside it, or as a screen full of the smaller thumbnails.

Lastly, I've tried creating such a macro or series of steps, but can't quite get the hang of what the layers, masks, shadows, gradients and the like would need to be.   I'm hoping that my general idea appeals to a few home theater affectionatos that could create such a mask/macro thing for me and anyone else interested.

If anyone's ever seem Guifx's Logo Tool, that's the sort of thing I'm looking to do but with much larger images.  You just point Logo Tool at a directory full of images and it generates glassy buttons instantly from them.  Kinda cool.

Cheers and best regards from Australia,

Dir

Yes it can be  

I'm not a professionnal of this method but you can find tons of tutorials on it I think  

This is called a script. You specify what kind of effects, resizing, duplicating, ... in PS and then, just save it.

Afterwards, you just have to select the JPG you want to use, and "treat by packet" I think, I don't have the english version  

But wait, I'm sure that other greats users of this site can answer you better than me  

Yeah, I got that far and I grok the idea of scripts and batch automation.  What I lack is the creative flair for coming up with a cool look for any given set of images, and I'm hoping that the more creative and inspired regulars can come up with something like a script that can be applied to a set of images to give it a unique look.

What would be cool is if several people all came up with different looks for movie coverart/posters - like perhaps

- a simple beveled look
- a glassy, lit from above look
- a posterization look
- a black and white simplification or 'A Scanner Darkly' look
- an aqua / crystal look.

etc.

What's different here is that what I'm suggesting being created is essentially a library of steps that can be applied, rather than actual icons, signatures, or end images themselves.

Could be interesting to see what can be done.  I've attached a couple of images that could be used by people to come up with something and post it back here so we can see what they look like.  I know that not all conversions would look good with all images, and things like text would get obscured, but nonetheless the results may look pretty artistic.

Dir

Still mucking about.  I tried creating a slightly glassy look, illuminated from above, then added a small border to a sample photo.

Will keep playing.

Dir