I’ve used actions for a very long time in photoshop, in fact I couldn’t keep track of half of the actions I had set up within the last 5 years. But it wasn’t until more recently that I realized just how powerful an action can be. These actions can range anywhere from quick rotates to lengthy photo layouts that create the entire product from start to finish with only a couple of keystrokes from the user. Below I’ll cover a couple of the quirks that will hopefully help you while building your own.

In the screen shot above you can see the block to the left of the command in this action. This block turns the dialog on and off, anytime you set a command that can be controlled by the user you’ll see this option. By default they are turned off. This can be anything from “open” as shown above to layer opacity, filters, transforming images and so on. When the dialog is turned off the actions runs through with whatever commands you gave it, but when turned on the user has the option of changing these settings to their liking. This comes in really handy when adjusting colors, placing images, or setting levels. You can’t always depend on the original input to work with every image and that’s where this really helps.

In this image you’ll notice the first option is checked off and the second one is left blank. This will disable certain commands within your action. This will help when troubleshooting actions or creating long actions to include every possible element that you would want in your final outcome. In this particular action I set up a layout to have multiple options for a background in an image. I can then go back and control what option I would like to use for that certain image without having to create two separate actions that essentially do the same thing.

Here is a little quirk that I recently ran into while creating some photo layouts. The image above shows “set work path” in the action. When you’re recording an actions and running through your steps the action doesn’t record your work path while using the pen tool into the action. What you have to do is create your path as you normal, when you’ve drawn out the path select the palette options menu in the top left of the palette. In this drop down you’ll see the option to “Insert Path” click here and it will record your pen tool input into the action.

In this same menu you can also stop and start your action while working on it. This really helps if you just need to take a break or maybe to get something set up that’s needed for the action but that you don’t want recorded.

There’s always much more to learn when it comes to actions but hopefully this will set the ball rolling for some to start diving into actions and seeing what you can create. I hope I’ve shed some light on actions for some of you and please, feel free to ask questions if you would like help on something.

Let’s get a quick rundown on what’s included here. Up first is “Clarity”, meant to cut through the haze on your images and boost colors with an added tonal range. This action really likes scenic shots and doesn’t fair so well on people. Don’t let this discourage you from experimenting though. You will see your best results from wide open scenic shots with a bit of haze to them.

Click image for a higher resolution sample.

Next is “FakeR”, no that’s not a typo. This action began life as a fake HDR action but didn’t quite live up to it’s name. On some particular images you’ll still see that effect but overall it just adds a very high tone range with strong contrast and a bit of desaturation. FakeR works well on a multitude of images including people but you’ll see the best results on images that aren’t too light. This effect tends to wash out bright spots so be careful with that.

Here’s your preview.

There you go, my first two released actions. I hope everyone enjoys them and as I said, be sure to stick around for more later.

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