Creating Actions in Photoshop

Tutorial by David Kendal

I'm gonna make my first attempt at a tutorial to show those of you who don't know how to make a Photoshop Action. these things are extremely useful when you get the hang of them. if you have a technique you use often involving lots of layers, filters, blending modes, etc. it can make things a lot easier for you in the future by automating it all. Also, if you're experimenting with a new technique, or trying a challenge here on RetouchPRO, this is an excellent (and easier than keeping track in a text file) way to record exactly what you've done.

First of all, you need to locate the Actions Pallete. It should already be there on your default Photoshop screen, somewhere around the third window down on the right side of the screen, and the second tab from the left. It should look something like this:

If it's not showing up, go the the main menu bar, and select Window> Actions

Now, here's an image to illustrate almost everything you'll find in your Actions Pallete:

A couple notes:

• Your Actions folder is located in your Photoshop program directory under .\Presets\Photoshop Actions.
  WARNING! you can store your downloaded and created actions in this folder if you want, but if you are going to reload Photoshop, make sure that you have all of them backed up in a seperate folder (or put them there in the first place) otherwise they will be overwritten with the default Photoshop actions when it is reloaded.
• To load an action you've already downloaded, click on the menu button and select "Load Actions". if there's no problems with it, then it should appear on your list. The Actions load as sets, which act like directory trees, so select your action you loaded, and when the directory expands, click on the action you want to use and then hit the "Play" button (depending on what kind of filters etc. that the action uses, it may take awhile to process).
• Some people have had problems storing actions (i.e. having too many in the folder, then not being able to load the Actions pallete) You can find some information on how to work around or solve the problem here

So now that you (I hope) have an idea of what's going on in the Action's pallete, lets finally start making an Action. 1. First of all, you need to either open a photo to edit, or create a new image so that there's actually something for the Action to record. 2. Click on the "Create new set" button and in dialog box that comes up type in "Test Action 1" for the title. It should automatically be selected if not, select it now.

3. Click the "Create new action" button, and a dialog box will come up again. Name it "Test Action" for Set, pick "Test Action 1", Function key = none, and Color = none. Now click "Record".

4. From now on, anything you do to your image will be recorded as a step in your new Action. Before you start working, it's a good idea to duplicate the layer or image so that you aren't working on the original and you can still go back and compare with it. Now you can apply Filters, layer blending modes etc. and create an easily repeatable pattern of steps. You'll end up with something that looks like this:

In the above image, you'll see that I toggled the Dialog boxes off (it's the little icon of a box with 3 dots in it) so when I "play" the action, it'll just run it without showing me each dialog box and waiting for me to choose an option. If you want control over the options, (i.e. to change the settings of a filter etc.), you just have to click the main icon by the name of your action, or you can pick separately which steps will show the dialog boxes.

(with all the boxes enabled)

5. Now for the details about various ways to edit your actions: When you're recording an Action, if you want to pause for a bit to experiment with something that you don't want recorded yet, you can just press the stop button, and when you press record again, it'll keep on recording from where you were. You can insert various things into your actions: Audio or text notes - just use either tool to create a note and it'll be saved in your action. From the actions menu - Create a "Stop" makes a stop in the Action so it'll pause when it gets to that point. You can also check or uncheck the check boxes beside each step which will enable/disable that step to process when you play the action. By selecting a step and dragging it, you can change the order in which the steps happen. There's a lot you can do with an Action, it just takes a lot of experimentation.

6. Now that you've finished your new Action, you need to save it or all that work will have gone to waste. You can do this by selecting the set you want to save (don't bother trying to save just the action by itself, it won't work, you have to save the set) then go into the Actions pallete menu and select "Save Actions" and your action will be saved to the Photoshop actions folder. Another way of saving is to save it as a text file (which is very nice for reading through/printing steps, or to turn into a description of a challenge or technique) All you have to do is hold down the Ctrl (Cmd for Mac) and Alt keys at the same time while you select the "Save Actions" menu item, then in the "Save as" dialog box, it'll automatically give it the .txt extension. *note: if you save it as a text file, you won't be able to import it back into Photoshop, so remember to save the .atn file too.

Here's a full screen shot of Photoshop and an action with various things done in it and various running options.

Hope this helps you get a better idea of how actions work and how to create them. If you come up with a technique you like, now you can create an action out of it, and if you want to, you can post it in one of the Actions threads in the forums here :)

Discuss this tutorial here