Advice on actions..

Momof3

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Hi! I mainly photograph people. Usually babies and kids. I'm looking to purchase some cool actions, but have NO idea where to start. I'm not looking to spend a lot of money, just want to see what's out there and start using some to save myself time and maybe get a little more creative with editing. Does anyone here use them, and which are your favorites? Any example photos of your favorites?

I would appreciate any advice. I use Photoshop CS2, btw.
 
When it comes to time saving actions...I just make my own. If I'm finding that I'm doing the same things over and over, I'll just record that into an action so I can just do it with one click.
I used to use an action that would set up all the common adjustment layers that I would normally use. Then I just had to go in and make tweaks. Saved a little bit of time.

The biggest time save however, was switching to Lightroom for the bulk of my editing.

As for artistic actions that you get from somewhere else. I've tried a bunch of free ones, but I've never bought any. There are some interesting ones, but they can be pricey.
 
what kind of actions are you looking for in particular?
lightroom has tons of presets all over the internet.
however, unless you shoot RAW you'll not want to use many
of them. they do affect RAW and jpg files in different ways.

for children and babies i usually only use a slight, light skin softening.

use your flattened, finished file with the skin blemishes already touched up. create a layer via copy (cntl+j). change the blending mode to screen and reduce the opacity to 10%. do a gaussian blur at 4-6%. alt-click the mask icon to set an inverse mask.

hit the \ button so you can see where you are painting. use a soft, low-opacity white brush to stroke the forehead, chin, nose and cheeks... not the eyes though. if there is some chest / belly exposed, paint there too.
 

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