Need help getting action to work in PE2...

[redneb]

I downloaded JC Imaging's Soft Focus Look from http://www.geocities.com/rnlnero/PE2stuff2.html (Ling's Things) and got it installed and it runs. But it gets to the end and it has a text box pop up that says:

"Okay, simply go to layers and adjust the opacity of the masked layer to suit your preference. flatten the image when done."

There is no "OK" button, just a "stop" button. I can't do anything until I push the stop button and then it stops the action and goes back to the original picture. Any ideas on how I can fix this?

And by the way, I'm running Photoshop Elements 2.0

Thanks so much!
Cyndi

[philbach]

Actions

I don't have that action and I don't think JC has one for the mac. However when a stop is inserted in an action the action is still in progress until the user does something. So run it again. When the action stops do this: go to layers and adjust the opacity of the masked layer to suit your preference. Then hit enter/return and see what happens. Maybe that will help.

[redneb]

Thanks, Phil, but it still doesn't work. I can't click on anything, including the layers pallete until I click the "stop" button. Then it undoes everything it has already done. There's another pop-up box before this one to adjust the gaussian blur and it has an "OK" button and a "stop" button". But this one just has the one "stop" button and won't let me click anything.

Any other ideas? Thanks for the suggesion!
Cyndi

[philbach]

soft focus

I downloaded the action and put in my Photoshop CS2Mac and ran it on a picture I got to the point you mentioned where it said stop. I looked at the action (it needs to be opened so you can see the steps) and the next command was flatten. I selected that and clicked the run triangle and that completed the action and the results were pretty good.

So for me I clicked flatten in the actions which is the next command below stop and clicked the run button and that finished the action. Hey it worked well on a picture posted on this site.

[redneb]

Thank you so much, Phil! I'm still a little confused...how do I open the action to see the steps?

I looked at the action (it needs to be opened so you can see the steps) and the next command was flatten. I selected that and clicked the run triangle and that completed the action and the results were pretty good.

I'm not quite sure how to do this? Where/how do I open the action and do this? Thanks again for all your help!
Cyndi

[philbach]

Action Excitement

Well I have photoshop CS2 and Photoshop elements may be different. The action soft focus has numerous steps. In photoshop there is an actions palette which I've made a screen dump of. So in the actions palette there is an action called softfocus. This action consists of many steps that can be revealed by clicking the disclosure arrow right at the top of the action. At the bottom of the actions palette there is a run arrow. You click that to run the action.

Its possible that P.elements doesn't have this feature incidentally.

[redneb]

Phil, thank you so much for taking the time to help me. Unfortunately, I don't see this...I guess Elements doesn't have it. All I have is the list of effects and then an apply button...no options to view any of it.

I guess I'm just not going to be able to use it. Bummer!
Thanks again for all your help!
Cyndi