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Photoshop: creating actions
Creating your own actions isn’t just fun; it’s also a huge time saver when you automate the editing techniques you use a lot. I have a enormous collection of my own actions. Each and every editing technique I’ve ever done over the past 10 years or so, I literally transformed into an action. Anywhere from simple borders, to special color pop techniques, sharpening, resizing, favorite B & W editing and foggy overlays. You name it, I’ve made it.
The important thing is; I know how they all work and how they’re build up. Obviously, since I’ve created them. But what I mean is that I don’t need my actions to apply these techniques to a photo. Any photo. So if I end up using a different machine, or somehow I’d lose everything (God forbid), I could still edit my photos in the exact same way or quickly remake the actions. The moral of the story; never be dependant on actions if you don’t know how to create your favorite effects yourself.
C’mon, let me show you how to create and save your own actions! That’s the very first step!
Sunlight touch up:
I’m using my sunlight touch up technique for this. I’ll post the action we’ll be making at the end of the post, but do me—and especially yourself—a big favor and make your own action at least once. You’ll see how utterly simple it is. Learning to do this yourself will give you an amazing freedom when it comes to building your own personalized work-flow.
Creating the action:
Open your image first. I’ll wait! Always start with an open image, unless you want to implement the actual opening of a photo into your action. Which is something I do in my storyboard actions. But for now just start with an open image.
Most people will see this colorful action palette when they look at their screen. So do I. The cute colors are fun! They’re very functional as well because they help you find the right set in no time.
What you see here is a small part of my storyboard actions. Don’t even try and figure it out; they only make sense to me :)
Now you can not create actions when you’re in button mode. If you see all the cute colors; you’re in button mode. Or in denial, but that’s a different 12-stepper! So we have to switch from button mode to edit mode. Click the little triangle on the top right of your actions palette to open the menu.
This will unfold the actions menu. The button mode is at the very top of the menu. Click it once.
This will turn button mode into a simple text edit mode.
You can only save action sets, not single actions. Each action you make has to be stored in a set of choice.
Click that little triangle again and choose New Set from the menu.
Now give your action set a name. I’ve named mine—and what a novel idea—Kay’s Actions. The set will appear at the very bottom of your actions palette, so scroll down to find it. You can simply left click on the set with your mouse, hold down the mouse key and drag the set anywhere you like within the actions palette.
Now there’s the set named Kay’s Actions in the action palette. It’s still an empty folder of course. Let’s fill it up!
Click on the little triangle again, and this time choose New Action from the menu.
A popup box will appear with several options. Let’s take a closer look at them.
- The top box lets you name your action. I’ll be making the sunlight touch up, so I named it accordingly.
- The second pull-down menu specifies the set you will store the action in, of course I’ve chosen the set we’ve just created; Kay’s Actions.
- The third box lets you assign a function key to your action, which is something I never do.
- The last option let’s you assign a color. I’m going for a nice, fresh green color.
Now you will see the action pop up in the set we’ve created. It’s still an empty action at this point.
The moment we’ve created the New Action, photoshop automatically started recording. See the little red dot at the bottom of the palette? That’s your record button. When you see the red dot you know that photoshop is recording every single step you take.
Now simply use the sunlight technique I’ve posted right here.
Cheat sheet:
Ctrl J – or layer- duplicate layer
Rename your layer
Filter – sharpen – unsharp mask (amount20% – radius 50px – threshold 0)
Select foreground color picker and choose a soft color
Edit – fill
Choose foreground color
Blendmode – overlay
Opacity 25%
Voila! You’ve just created your own action. Simple, huh? Under the action name you will see a list of all the steps we’ve taken. Now push the little blue square at the bottom of the palette to stop recording.
If you want to see the settings of a specific step you’ve taken, simply click on the little triangle right next to the name. I want to see the settings for the unsharp mask filter.
It will unfold all the settings that were used.
Making actions in photoshop will not automatically save them. Photoshop just stores them locally. If you remove the action from your action palette without having saved it, you lose it, period. You have to save them afterwards, manually.
Now it’s time to save the action you’ve made. Select the action set and not the action itself, or you won’t be able to save your work.
Click the little triangle again and choose Save Actions from the menu.
Now you can save your actions to a folder on your pc. Or mac.
Click the little triangle once more, and switch back to button mode.
There’s your action! Fully ready to be used.
You can add any future actions to the set you’ve created, so you have them all together! Feel free to download my Sunlight Touch Up action right here.
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Thanks Kay, thats super informative !! Really nice of you to share all this…
Super interesting, thanks a lot for taking the time to post about that, Kay!
You make this seem like it is just one, two, three, but for me it would not go so well. Your new look is great by the way!
Just tried it and I can not believe I made my own action! It worked so well. Thank you so much!!!
@Sheila:
You mean you gave it a shot and it didn’t work or you think it won’t work for you? If you have tried it; where precisely did you get stuck? I might be able to help out.
I love these turorials! Thanks.
Hey Kay,
I just recently purchased photoshop elements and was curious about your tutorials… do you know if the steps will work in PSE? I would really like to learn how to do the photo collage technique that I have long admired on your blog (just love it!). And well anything that you would have to teach. I love your blog, your photos and your recipes. And the temporary new look… I like it too.
I’ve been creating my own actions lately as well and it’s such a time saver! I would be seriously interested in hearing how you did the collage actions though. I have such a hard time with the collages, going in and sizing everything and having to use a calculator (MATH! It has no place in photoshop!) and just generally being frustrated with it all. Any tips on how you get all your collages so perfect?
Well now you’ve gone and made your website even more valuable to me. My two favorite things – cooking and scrapbooking with Photoshop – all on one handy-dandy website. Thanks, Kay – you are awesome!
@Karly:
That’s very hard to explain in a comment here, it’s not really complex but it is too complex to write down in only a few sentences. I make a basic drawing of how I want my storyboard to be, then I go in and make seperate clipping masks of each photo opening, so to speak.
I have always loved your images – even from WAY back when. I’m bookmarking this to come back and give it a go. I have never set up my own actions. Just done it from scratch each time … or used the actions that were already there. GREAT job on keeping it simple too … you ROCK (as usual).
xoxo,
K
Thanks so much for breaking down this tutorial. I love your images and read regularly to see how you photograph your food. I’ve appreciate the breakdown on the actions – definitely a time saver – and would love to hear more about photography/post-processing tips specific to food. Thanks!
@Liz (Zested):
I have to admit I don’t use any special editing on food photography. Pretty much the same editing as I do on regular photos. I mainly edit the intro and end shot, and the rest of the photos—the how to shots— are virtually unedited. Aside from a little light here and there and a little more contrast and sharpening, of course. I try to shoot my photos in a way that I won’t have to crop or edit a whole lot afterwards. But I’ll reveal a few of my techniques :)
@Chris:
I have to confess I know nothing about elements. I’ve never worked with it myself. From what I’ve understood it’s a stripped version of photoshop, right?Will have to check to see if someone I know has elements, and I’m sure I’ll be able to figure out ways for elements users to work with this as well. Give me some time to find out, okay!
Thanks for your quick response! I think your assessment of PSE is right on (again, new user). What I do know as I look at all the PS tutorials out there, is that alot of PSE users are hungry for learning/tutorials too. I will eagerly await for you to post again…
Kay, what a fantastic tip!
Thinking i work with photoshop for so long and always tought that action didn’t get any use…
I’ve already put it actions in action! :) :) :)
Thank you.
I never knew about this! This is very very cool! Thanks for sharing Kay!
Those tutorials are very helpful. Thanks for sharing :)