>>>How Good Are Photoshop Actions?<<<

[eventors]

Hello,
Are there any good free (or paid) Actions that do a great job of retouching black and white photos? Does an Action just give a head start in improving the photo? Should you expect to tweak the Actions to create a good finished product? Or should you not even start with Actions?
I look forward to your responses.
--Jeff

[roger_ele]

Re: &gt;&gt;&gt;How Good Are Photoshop Actions?&lt;&lt;&lt;

Using actions without a basic understanding of Photoshop would be like cooking from recipes without knowing what you were making - very random

Actions are recorded steps in photoshop that you can 'play back' in order to do the steps quickly. You still have to know what you want to accomplish. "Retouching" is often something done to one area of the photo more than another, in order to target those problem areas you need some understanding of Photoshop. So actions can be an aid, but they are not the starting point, learning the basics is where you should start. I apologize if you are not new, just inferring from the question asked

My favorite author for learning the basics of Photoshop and retouching is Katrin Easmann at http://www.katrineismann.com/ She is able to cover a lot of complicated ground simply and clearly, so that both beginners and advanced users are able to learn.

Best of luck to you!

[Alcar]

Re: &gt;&gt;&gt;How Good Are Photoshop Actions?&lt;&lt;&lt;

Jeff...try Jgraphite. It has a quirky interface, but it can produce a very decent B&W in several genres. Later you can move up to more capability.
Alan

[RobertAsh]

Re: &gt;&gt;&gt;How Good Are Photoshop Actions?&lt;&lt;&lt;

Jeff,

Any of the good black and white processing plug-ins has a number of pre-sets to get you started:
- Nik SilverEfex Pro
- Topaz has one, too
- Lightroom has a few if you're a Lightroom user

You can use the presets as a starting point and modify them to your tastes.