PhotoShop Actions Speed Up Editing Workflow

[BCordeiroPhotography]

hey everyone im using Adobe Bridge And Photoshop to edit my images. Just Wondering if actions will speed up my work flow. i have about 50 engagement session photos that im still not done with i was thinking about buying some actions can someone please give me some feedback on the good and bad about Photoshop actions work flow thank you.

 

[Overread]

Actions are simply a series of editing steps that are recorded and then performed in order when activated. As such there is nothing within an action that you can't do within photoshop exactly the same - as the action is just running through the command options and applying default values to them.

Actions are thus dead easy to make and people make them for all sorts of things - often to speed up their own workflow by automating common processes so that they don't have to.

You can also buy them from others; but remember all you are doing is copying someone elses automated idea. That is only worth buying if:

1) It is an automation step that you want to perform

2) It is an automation step that you have been unable to faithfully replicate yourself (because if you can do it yourself you can just make your own action up to do it yourself).


So I'd look at your own workflow and identify any series of steps that can be combined together which would then be suitable for an action. Chances are you might find your own actions suit you far more than 3rd party ones because your actions will do what you want them to do exactly.

 

[BCordeiroPhotography]

thank you i have to learn how to record my own actions.

 

[dennybeall]

Very useful tool! Saw one simple one today where the guy wants to resize an image but only wants to make it 2% bigger at a time so he makes an ACTION and he can just run it with one click as many times as he needs to get to the final size.

 

[fotomonkey]

thank you i have to learn how to record my own actions.

Just click the 'Create new action' button in the actions palette and walk through the steps you want to record. If you want to use it for batch processing throw a Save As step in there as well. I may have made a video tutorial on this subject. I'll see if I can dig it up.

ETA: That was quicker than I thought. I found it. it's a Flash file, though. Let me see if I can convert it. It's old (circa 2005) but probably still relevant.

Update 2: Well, I found the source WMV but I'm having a hard time converting it. Stay tuned.

Final: Ugh. The conversion turned it into crap so I just threw the Flash stuff up on my site. Be gentle. This is old (probably CS2). Still the same theory, though.

Creating Actions in PS