Better Layer Comps in Photoshop

Hey there graphic designer. Do you ever use Photoshop’s “Layer Comps to Files” feature? If so you may find it annoying that it automatically adds numbers before your filename — not a big deal for 10 files but for those cases where you’re batch creating a large number of files it’s tedious to have to rename each one. Want to save yourself the hassle? Luckily there’s a fix that removes the file numbering, and all you need is a text editor.

Here’s what to do:

1. Browse your hard drive for “Layer Comps To Files.jsx” — it should be in your Adobe/Presets folder. For me running CS5 on a Mac it was located here: /Applications/Adobe Photoshop CS5/Presets/Scripts/
2. Open the file “Layer Comps To Files.jsx” in a text editor (I used Text Edit). Unless you understand java code it probably won’t make much sense. Don’t panic.
3. Scroll down until you find the following block of code:
   

   var fileNameBody = exportInfo.fileNamePrefix;
fileNameBody += "_" + zeroSuppress(compsIndex, 4);
fileNameBody += "_" + compRef.name;
if (null != compRef.comment) fileNameBody += "_" + compRef.comment;
fileNameBody = fileNameBody.replace(/[:\/\\*\?\"\<\>\|\\\r\\\n]/g, "_"); // '/\:*?"<>|\r\n' -> '_'
if (fileNameBody.length > 120) fileNameBody = fileNameBody.substring(0,120);

4. Replace it with this block instead:
   

   var fileNameBody = exportInfo.fileNamePrefix;
fileNameBody += "_" + compRef.name;
if (null != compRef.comment) fileNameBody += "_" + compRef.comment;
fileNameBody = fileNameBody.replace(/[:\/\\*\?\"\<\>\|\\\r\\\n]/g, "_"); // '/\:*?"<>|\r\n' -> '_'
if (fileNameBody.length > 120) fileNameBody = fileNameBody.substring(0,120);

5. Save the file and be careful to keep the “.jsx” extension.
6. Restart Photoshop and try out your new and improved Layer Comps to Files!