Photoshop Actions

What are Photoshop Actions?

"An action is a series of tasks that you play back on a single file or a batch of files - menu commands, palette options, tool actions, and so on. You can create an action that changes the size of an image, applies a filter to the image for a particular effect, and then saves the file in the desired format. Nice, isn’t it ! Actions can include stops that let you perform tasks that cannot be recorded (for example, using a painting tool). Photoshop and Illustrator come with predefined actions installed that help you perform common tasks. You can use these actions as is, customize them to meet your needs, or create new actions. Actions are stored in sets to help you organize them. You can record, edit, customize, and batch-process actions, and you can manage groups of actions by working with action sets."

I recently discovered Photoshop actions and I can't get enough!! I've always wondered how to get those beautiful color-saturated "professional" looking pictures. People have told me I take pretty good pictures, but to me, they seemed kinda washed out, compared to how I wanted them to look. So I did some research on the net, and finally figured out why my pictures didn't look the way I really wanted them to and how to make them to look that way!

I've said it before, but it bears repeating over and over: I LOVE the internet!! So much information!!! It's like having a giant book that never ends! Ooops! Did my geekyness just show? Lol!

Okay, I'll stop drooling and continue...

I've been playing around with Photoshop using some free actions I've found on the internet and getting some amazing results. I mentioned in an earlier post about Pioneer Woman's free action sets: 1 & 2; I recommend you download and try them out today! You can find lots more free Photoshop actions all over the net. DeviantART and Visual-Blast have free actions to download too. Also, try Googling "free photoshop actions", and you'll get around 6,500,000 hits!

Wow!

If you have a particular set of techniques you use over and over, you may be interested in learning how to make your own Photoshop actions. You can find thousands of tutorials all over the internet. I used this tutorial to create an action to add my watermark to all of my pictures. Since learning the technique, I've made several different watermark actions; I don't always use the same one. It was a very easy technique to learn.

Scrapbook magazines offer great photography tips too. I recently bought a magazine by Scrapbooks, etc. that is filled with tips and tricks. You can visit their website for even more photography help.

Here's a couple of pictures I took of Serenity today that I tweaked in Photoshop using several actions I found on the internet.

Check out these awesome results:

The original picture, straight from my camera, is on the left. The picture on the right has been Photoshopped.

Both of these have been Photoshopped.

The original picture, straight from my camera, is on the left. The picture on the right has been Photoshopped.

Both of these have been Photoshopped.

Pretty neat, huh?! Photoshop actions will make your pictures POP! The key is practice, practice, practice! To get the results above, I mixed around 7 different actions together - more is better!

Yep! Serenity's wearing her one-of-a-kind dress from courtneycourtney - don't forget to check out Courtney's store on Etsy and get your DD one of her beautiful dresses today!!

Have fun!