Get iPhoto to Enhance thousands of photographs?

Question

I've discovered that thousands of the photos in my iPhoto library do not have proper icons. I've tried rebuilding the database and that hasn't worked. However, one technique that does work is simply clicking the "edit" and then the Enhance button.

I've discovered that if I edit the first photo in a series I can fix them all by toggling back and forth between the "Enhance" button and the right-arrow button.

Is there any way to automate this?

Answer 1

I haven't used iPhoto that much, but I have used applescript for quite some time. I'm guessing the Enhance button is located under the Edit menu. If that's true, then you can...

tell application "System Events" to tell process "iPhoto" to click menu item "Enhance" of menu "Edit" of menu bar 1

You said you have thousands of photos that need enhancing. AppleScript is perfect for doing things just like this. To automate it entirely (load the images as well as enhance them), you would use a droplet, as shown here:

on open the_images
    repeat with i from 1 to the count of the_images
        set this_image to item i of the_images as alias --the current image
        --Verify that the file is actually an image and not just a random file
        tell application "Finder"
            if (this_image) as string does not end with ":" then --a folder, cannot use
                if the name extension of this_image is in {"jpg","tif","gif","png","psd"} then --add additional extensions as needed
                    --This is an image, so enhance it
                    my enhance(this_image)
                else
                    display dialog "The file " & name of this_image & " is not an image. It cannot be enhanced." buttons{"OK"} default button 1
                end if
            else
                display dialog "The folder " & name of this_image & " is not an image. It cannot be enhanced." buttons{"OK"} default button 1
            end if
        end tell
    end repeat
end open

on enhance(this_image)
    tell application "iPhoto"
        activate
        open this_image
    end tell
    tell application "System Events" to tell process "iPhoto" to click menu item "Enhance" of menu "Edit" of menu bar 1
    tell application "iPhoto" to close this_image
end enhance

EDIT: The above code won't work (I haven't deleted it to show what others shouldn't do), but this one should...

tell application "iPhoto"
    set the_images to (get the selection) as list
    repeat with i from 1 to the count of the_images
        set this_image to item i of the_images
        my enhance()
        save this_image in this_image
    end repeat
end tell

on enhance()
    tell application "System Events" to tell process "iPhoto" to click menu item "Enhance" of menu "Edit" of menu bar 1
end enhance

I apologize if this one doesn't work either; I'm completely new to iPhoto and I'm doing my best. :S

EDIT2: OK, I apologize. The above script doesn't work (haven't deleted to show what others shouldn't do). This one probably won't work, but give it a try anyways...

tell application "iPhoto"
    set these_images to (get the selection) as list
    repeat with i from 1 to the count of these_images
        set this_image to item i of these_images
        my enhance(this_image)
        save this_image in this_image
    end repeat
end tell

on enhance(this_image)
    tell application "System Events"
        tell process "iPhoto"
            keystroke return
            --possible pseudo-code
            click menu item "Edit" of menu bar 2
            click menu item "Enhance" of menu "Quick Fixes"
            --end possible pseudo-code
        end tell
     end tell
end enhance

:S

@Downvoter: Care to explain?