opinions on CS6 ACTIONS?

[ewick]

So I have seen a few different ads selling their "over 100" easy to use actions. I have no experience with this so I thought I would ask if any one has any thoughts on this. Will it speed up your work flow? are they easy to use? is 100 worth it? Any light on this subject would be highly appreciated. Thank you

 

[pixmedic]

get the one with "kung fu grip" action. thats the best one.

 

[ewick]

get the one with "kung fu grip" action. thats the best one.

I get the feeling you are yanking my chain but then again I have seen they have some crazy names. "london fog brush" and stuff like that.

 

[pixmedic]

yea..i got nothing on the actions. don't use them.

 

[cgipson1]

Actions are an excellent way for those that know how to make actions to make money off of noobs that don't know any better! Most of them are crap... and not worth anything. Some can be useful, but the difficulty it knowing which is which! Probably 1 in 1000 would be worth buying.... and that may be a conservative estimate. And this isn't based on having used them... just seeing the results!

 

[ewick]

Actions are an excellent way for those that know how to make actions to make money off of noobs that don't know any better! Most of them are crap... and not worth anything. Some can be useful, but the difficulty it knowing which is which! Probably 1 in 1000 would be worth buying.... and that may be a conservative estimate. And this isn't based on having used them... just seeing the results!

Thats what i was thinking myself.... not based off any experience using them thought I would ask on here to see if any one has actually bought any and their experience.

 

[pixmedic]

I stand by my kung fu grip statement

 

[cgipson1]

Actions are an excellent way for those that know how to make actions to make money off of noobs that don't know any better! Most of them are crap... and not worth anything. Some can be useful, but the difficulty it knowing which is which! Probably 1 in 1000 would be worth buying.... and that may be a conservative estimate. And this isn't based on having used them... just seeing the results!

Thats what i was thinking myself.... not based off any experience using them thought I would ask on here to see if any one has actually bought any and their experience.

There was a thread not long ago (LMPhotos was the OP, I think) where she stated she wished she had not wasted all that money on actions, thinking they would help her photography..... This Thread! http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/photographic-discussions/315793-what-waste-money.html

If you see yellow, washed out, low contrast photos.. that is usually actions... the so called Vintage Look that is so "in" with a certain class of quasi-pros.... although there are a lot of other types of actions too! Look on facebook.. that is Action Heaven (where BAD actions go to die!) lol!

 

[KmH]

Heck! She only spent $600.

 

[Overread]

Actions are just scripts of pre-selected adjustments that photoshop makes to the photos to give a specific effect. As said above there is a massive market of people who make actions to do all kinds of things, but mostly to cash in on people who buy photoshop and then never read the manual or learn how to use it beyond applying actions and pressing "auto" this and that.
Heck a good number of photoshops functions are just "actions" which streamline certain effects (eg the clarity slider is just streamlining a highpass sharpening filter)

In general there are some actions worth buying, these tend to be ones that give you a certain look or which cut down on a lot of stages in editing to help streamline your workflow. That said if you learn enough there isn't anything an action can do that you can't do yourself - and nothing which stops you making your own actions to suit your specific style of editing.

I would approach actions cautiously, as even many professionals make a bit of money here and there with some less than stella actions aimed at the entry level photographers.

 

[kathyt]

You will never have consistant work if you rely on actions to perform this magical act for you. It is best to just create your own style and then actions can come in handy later on for a few quick things here and there.

 

[MiFleur]

I have created a few actions myself and like the results, dare to experiment!
at worst you can always delete them!

 

[Denon]

It's more useful to learn Photoshop so you can get the right look on your photos instead of relying on actions. Then you can always create your own actions to speed up the workflow.

But I find that actions can be a great resource to find inspiration and a posibility to learn how to create a certain look. But if you're interested in Actions you should go to deviantart, they have a wide range of free actions you can use. Browsing Application Resources on deviantART

 

[cgipson1]

It's more useful to learn Photoshop so you can get the right look on your photos instead of relying on actions. Then you can always create your own actions to speed up the workflow.

But I find that actions can be a great resource to find inspiration and a posibility to learn how to create a certain look. But if you're interested in Actions you should go to deviantart, they have a wide range of free actions you can use. Browsing Application Resources on deviantART

Yea.. but be careful... some of the files out there are infected. I thought I would check some of them out, just to see if any of them were worthwhile... and got several alerts.

 

[Overread]

I know that sometimes virus scanners will give false positive results, though for something like photoshop actions I can't imagine what would prompt it to give a false positive for one action and not another (since they are all the same and just a list of orders for the software to follow). So yeah any "actions" which give you warnings are likely containing malicious content and should most certainly be avoided (like with all things always make sure you download only from reliable sources and even then always run updated virus scanners and keep backup of all essential data).