I have a number of web controls, which are made up of png images. The simplest is a button.
I need to be able to generate these controls with different colours depending on the colour selected by the client.
The images are .PSD files, layered before exporting to png.
My idea was to allow the client to pick one colour and use a layer filter in the psd to change the overall colour of the image and programmatically export the .PSD to PNG on the server. I looked into using the Photoshop CS Interface via COM, but haven't got my head around it, has anyone else used it for a similar task?
Alternatively I could read the png into memory and perform colour replacement, but this seems really complex for what reads like a simple(ish) task.
Many thanks in advance
.PSD is quite complicated and poor documented file format, that is constantly receiving new features from Adobe, so editing them is no way an easy task.
One way is to use Photoshop batch processing, which means photoshop installed on server, but as long you you wished to make that through COM, it should not be a problem.
One of the starting points may be: http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2008/11/photoshop-droplets-and-imagemagick/
Another way would be to try composite layers using c#, that means you would have some layers ready (textures/borders/etc), some would be created at runtime and all those layers would be merged at runtime using c#.