Installing and using actions

[Steve Randles]

Actions are just automated tasks within Photoshop, that save you from making many clicks when you want to do the same thing over and over again to different Photographs,images of graphics.

 

There are two ways to install an action.

 

1. If you installed Photoshop to its advised path the folder you place the action file (.atn) into will be this C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS2\Presets\Photoshop Actions. Either unzip to there or drag and drop and your action is now installed.

 

2. The other way and the one I use most frequently is to simply drag and drop the action file (.atn) onto the action palette inside an open copy of Photoshop.

 

To use the action or apply it to a photo, graphic etc first open up PS and on the right hand side you'll see a No of boxes, look for the one that has History/Actions (fig1) on its tabs, and click on the Actions tab. If you cant see this then go to the main menu bar along the top in photoshop and click on Window, make sure there is a tick next to "Actions" and your action palette will now be next to the history tab in PS.

 

**Before you run the action on your image, work on a copy of it first. To do this select your image in photoshop and from the menu bar top of page click "Image/Duplicate" You now have a new image same as your original to work with**

 

Assuming you have installed the action already as in 1 or 2 above (if not do it now), look to the action palette for the name of action you just installed (fig1) and click the blue triangle next to its name, this will open the set and you can now highlight the action name itself as in fig2. At the bottom of the action palette you will see a "play" button, click this now and the action will go off and running.

 

fig 1

 

fig2

 

 

Many actions contain custom input required from you, and boxes will open and close or pause. It one just opens and everything stops it probably wants some input, ie a colour selection, a number, a size etc. My advice is that for the first time you run the new action just click on okay all the way through till you see what it does do.

 

One more thing sometimes actions appear to be not working, this could be one of a couple of things. Firstly the step its currently working on could be resource heavy, see the progress bar at the bottom of PS to check that out.

 

Another common problem is that PS will report "Background not available" to cure this, right click the layer in the "layer palette" (underneath the action palette) and click "Flatten Image"

[rabster]

Thanks for that Steve, now I think I need a lie down.

 

I'll have another read tomorrow when not quite so knackered.

[Guest Jan V]

Like I said in my email to you last night, I am having a great time playing with CS2 and the actions you pointed me to in the cliparts thread Newt started. I was showing some of them to Newt this morning and he is in awe. As my CS2 class progresses I will hopefully be able to use these to enhance the pics for our websites. The possibilities now seem to be endless. Thanks for all the time you put into this thread. I'm enjoying the pictures being posted. Now if only some of the other forums could learn to "play so nice".