Calling one action from another

[mark pernal]

I'm wondering...is there a way to call one action from another?

I've seen an example of that, but it involved calling one action from another INSIDE the same SET. What I'm wondering is, is there a way to call an action from a different set?

Thanks.

[Richard_Lynch]

You believe you can, so long as you don't plan to rename the action or the set. You'll have to have saved the action files from Photoshop -- other editing methods will probably cause trouble.

Is there a reason why you wouldn't want to make the other actions inclusive in the set?

[mark pernal]

It was more a question of curiosity...and "down the road" thinking. Main reason not to have the other action inclusive in the new action would probably be due to size...say, I have a really large action set, and I create a new action that could use the functionality of a small part of that large set, but I don't want to copy a lot over...mainly to reduce redundancy, filesize, etc.

Thanks.

[DannyRaphael]

Mark:

Are you asking from a Photoshop Elements perspective (since this is the PSE forum) or Photoshop perspective? Just curious.

Assuming the latter at the point you want to insert the "play action from within an action" step just click on the desired action name in the other set (just like you would if you wanted to play it normally) and click the Play button. The action will run as usual. When it finishes playing, PS will record the step in the action being recorded.

At that point either keep recording more steps or click Stop to terminate the recording session.

As Richard notes, playing actions within actions goes haywire if:
* The called action is renamed, moved to another action set or deleted -or-
* The action set that contains the called action is deleted or renamed

Hope this helps.

~DannyR~

[mark pernal]

Danny..... From a PSE perspective (of course, using PS6 to build the actions).

I understand the importance of not chaning action sets/actions names...done plenty of programming and fully understand the "haywire" aspect!!!

Thanks for everyone's input on this subject.