How to export images directly from Photoshop -> Webserver?

November 20, 2008 7:52 PM

Is there a way to export images from Photoshop directly to to a webserver?

I currently have to export images from Photoshop to my desktop then upload them manually via Dreamweaver FTP. I use a Macbook, FWIW.

I guess what would be cool is if "www.mysite.com" showed up in my "Places" menu, and I could export images directly there -- any easy way to do this?

posted by deern the headlice to computers & internet (11 comments total)

Mount your web server via FTP right in the finder ("Connect to Server", command-K) and then Save As... or Export... right to that "drive".
posted by rokusan at 8:03 PM on November 20, 2008

One way of doing this is to find an FTP program with a 'watch folder'. Transmit lets you do 'droplets' which basically are just a drag and drop solution. I'm not sure where to point you, but you could also do some applescript + folder actions to get it to work with most ftp software.

Another alternative is to use the "connect to server" cmd-k in finder, but I have mixed results with that method.

Good luck!
posted by emptyinside at 8:06 PM on November 20, 2008

rokusan: that seems potentially like a great solution. But when I tried to drop an image on my site, I got this error:

"Could not write to this file. You do not have permission to write to this file".

The /images/ folder is set to 775. Should that be set differently? Emptyinside, is that the error you got too?
posted by deern the headlice at 8:10 PM on November 20, 2008

The Finder on my machine (OS X 10.4) mounts FTP servers read-only. I remember finding this buried in some help document after long time spent wondering "why isn't this working?" Don't know if it's different in 10.5.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 8:23 PM on November 20, 2008

My webhost (one of them anyhow) offers WebDAV access to the server, which means the remote drive on the server can be mounted in such a way that apps on my computer can save to them directly through the Finder.

I haven't used this for anything 'production' oriented, and I don't know if there are any drawbacks to this approach. But you may want to check with your host if you can do this.
posted by mikel at 8:34 PM on November 20, 2008

It's not free, but ExpanDrive is good for this sort of thing.
posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse at 8:44 PM on November 20, 2008

Hm. I can save to FTP servers I mount in the Finder. But then again I don't know how said servers are configured.

Emptyinside's two-step will also work, if you don't mind making a "clone" of your site, or its images folder, somewhere on your local disk. Then use Transmit or something else to synch the two folders, perhaps checking every minute or so.

An advantage of that would be an implicit backup (frontup?) of the content.
posted by rokusan at 8:44 PM on November 20, 2008

Sending files directly from photoshop to your webserver is a terrible idea. Do you really want to be able to accidentally overwrite your images from within your editor?
posted by b1tr0t at 10:03 PM on November 20, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Sending files directly from photoshop to your webserver is a terrible idea. Do you really want to be able to accidentally overwrite your images from within your editor?

Yup, exactly - uploading files manually is your last chance to avoid costly (and time consuming) mistakes. Wait until you're ready to upload everything, and you only have 2 more steps until your done. Automatically saving files to your web directory is not a good idea.
posted by The Light Fantastic at 1:12 AM on November 21, 2008

I don't think there is anything evil with wanting to save from PS directly to a website. You can overwrite files and break stuff just as easily with a multi-step manual FTP process as an automated one.

Doing work on a production webserver is not a great idea. Better to setup your Macbook to be the development server, and when it works, sync your dev server to the production one. rsync and ssh are amazing, free and are already on your mac.

For example:

rsync -avz -e ssh . [e-mail]:/home/me/public_html/

(and obviously you need ssh access to your webserver.)
posted by kamelhoecker at 7:11 AM on November 21, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

MacFusion, based on FUSE, is a highly viable free alternative to ExpanDrive.

Also, if your host offers it, you can mount an sftp share on the desktop with read-write access. But you made sure your host does offer it, because you only use sftp, right?
posted by Mr. Anthropomorphism at 1:36 PM on December 1, 2008