WK 11 - 1..2..3...ACTION!!!! in Photoshop....

Photoshop actions are the best — they save time and make us more productive during post-processing. They can be used to speed up repetitive tasks, make quick work of time consuming edits, and give a little creative inspiration.

1. FIND ACTIONS PALETTE

Before you can do anything, you need to have the right tools in front of you. Make sure that the actions palette is activated and visible. It typically shows up as a tab on the history palette, but this may vary depending on the workspace.
If your actions palette is nowhere to be found, we can activate it under the “Window” menu. Once we do this, we should see a palette similar to the one in this photo. If we don’t have any actions defined yet, we’ll probably just see the “Default Actions” set.
Sets are a way to group actions as we see fit. To create a new set, pull down the palette menu and click “New Set…”. Give your new set a descriptive name. Also note that when we import and export actions, it’s the whole set rather than a single action.

 

2. CREATE A NEW ACTION

OK, we’ve got some sequence of events we want to record and we’re ready to start the action. Before we can begin recording the action, we’ll need to create the action. Pull down the action menu and click on “New Action…”. Give it a name and a keyboard shortcut if we want. Now we have a new empty action that we can record to.

 

3. BEGIN RECORDING THE ACTION

To begin recording the action, simply select our action in the palette and click on the “Record” icon in the lower action menu or select “Start Recording” from the pull-down menu. Once we click this button, every event we perform will be recorded. This includes menu items, adjustments, layer selections, and any of the Photoshop tools.

There’s no need to hurry through our sequence of events, because the action is not time based. If we’re not doing something to the image, it won’t be recorded. So take time and get it right.

 

4. DO OUR STUFF

Now do whatever it is that we wanted to do. Perform all the tasks, clicks, option settings, and image adjustments that we want included in our action.
If we mess something up or if we accidentally skip a step — don’t worry. After recording the action we can go back and edit the steps, add steps, and re-record steps.

• Save (optional)
  Since I’m creating an action that eventually closes the file, it might be a good idea to quickly save the original prior to running the rest of the action. I don’t include this step in my action because of long save times for large files, but I could lose information if I forget to save prior to running the action.
• Flatten Image
  Since I’ll be resizing the image, I flatten everything to create a single composite layer. This prevents all of my adjustment layers and whatnot from being scaled separately.
• Image Size
  I prefer to keep my Flickr photos at 800 pixels on the long edge, so I’ll type in “800″ in the appropriate dialog field.
• Convert to Profile
  I work in Adobe RGB, so I need to convert everything to sRGB for the web.
• Convert Mode
  I also work in 16-bit mode, and JPEGs don’t support this. So I switch to 8-bit.
• Save As
  I didn’t like the results from the “Save for Web” option, so I just use a “Save As” now. Here, I specify that the image should be saved in a “Flickr Upload” folder located on my desktop. I don’t rename the image, so it retains its original name. I also save at a quality of 12 since there are no limits on storage space with Flickr.
• Close
  After I save the image, I have no need for it so I close it out.

Some of these events are specific to my personal preferences and my computer’s file structure, so if you’re following along with my example you’ll need to adjust a few values.

 

5. COMPLETE THE ACTION

So once we’re done with the sequence, its time to stop the action. Just press the “Stop” button at the bottom of the action palette and Photoshop will stop recording.
For some actions, this is the end of the road. But many of my actions are set to require input from the user at specific points along the way.

 

6. SET OUR TOGGLE DIALOGS

An action with no stop dialogs will run through the sequence of events without stopping or asking for anything. So if we have a step that requires some human input or uses a setting that must be adjusted for each photo, we must tell the action that this is the case. To do this, simply click on the box next to the step and we’ll see the icon appear.
When this box is active on a given step in the action, Photoshop will present us with the dialog box pre-filled as specified by the action. We’ll then have a chance to make adjustments to anything in that dialog before moving on. Once hit “OK” for that dialog, the action continues as it normally would.
I don’t set any stops for the dialogs. I can do this because each time I use it I want to produce the same results. For my other actions such as “LAB Sharpening”, “LAB Saturation”, or “High Pass Sharpen” (as shown in the image above), I set stop points to adjust certain settings that vary between photos.

 

7. INSERT ANY MENU ITEMS

Inserting a menu item (via the pull-down menu) is similar to recording the action, but it forces a dialog that can’t be toggled off. When the action arrives at that menu item, you MUST interact with it to continue. These menu items so have no preset values like the recorded actions do, so we’ll get whatever shows up by default.
I personally don’t use menu items very often, but they can be useful for certain situations. If we record an action and we find that the presets from the action item are causing more work for us, delete that step and insert a menu item.

 

8. TEST AND REFINE

I usually don’t get my actions right the first time around unless they’re extremely simple. I find that if I run a few different Photoshop files through the action, I usually uncover some mistakes or find the need to insert additional steps to ensure the action runs smoothly. If we find a mistake with one of your steps, just select that step and “Record Again” (via the pull-down menu). Or if we want to re-order some steps, just drag them up or down the list until they land where you want them.
I’ve also noted a few quirks about running actions, such as error messages that can occur if something is not possible to complete. Or the fact that working with multiple files, renaming layers, and selecting layers are cumbersome tasks with actions because Photoshop is looking for specific file names or layer names each time the action is run.