Guidelines to Use Our Photo Effect Action

Some of the resource we offer here is 'Action'. Action or .atn file is a series of steps recorded in Photoshop to generate a certain photo effect (or in general, anything you do in Photoshop). This recorded steps can be saved and play-back at later time to achieve the same effect on different image. This action can also be shared with other Photoshop users to create the same photo effect. All you have to do is download the action to your hard drive. Load the action in Photoshop. Open your image and run the action. If you haven't start using action, better start now because it can save you a lot of time. If you download one of our Photo Effect Actions, here's a few guidelines for you.


Preparing your Image to Run the Action

Open your image in Photoshop and make sure your layer palette looks like the picture below ie. (a)only one layer, (b)it should be named 'Background' and (c)it should be locked with a sophisticated lock symbol on the side. Click on the 'Background' layer on the layer palette to select that layer and run the action.



If for some reason, above is not the case for you, here's what you can do to achieve the correct starting point for the action:




Running The Action

1. Download the Action to your hard disk.

2. Fire up Photoshop. If you cannot see any 'Action Palette', on the menu above, go to Window > Actions. You'll notice the pallete below appears:



3. Click on the small arrow on top right hand corner and select Load Action. Locate the Action file in your hard disk.



4. You'll see a new action folder in your action palette. In this example, it's the 'Canvas Painting FX' folder.



5. Click on the small triangle near that folder to see the Action available in that folder.



6. Open your image in Photoshop. And Run the Action.



10 comments:

Mungo said...

Many thanks for the advice

*aCe* said...

No problem Mungo. Glad you find this useful =)

Anonymous said...

Does Actions work in Photshop Elements 7? If so, how do you access Actions? Thanks!

*aCe* said...

Honestly, I'll say that some actions will work with PSE and some don't due to limited function in Elements. All my actions are created in Photoshop CS and they contains adjustment layers like curves and selective color etc, which may not readily available in PSE..I think. I don't have much knowledge on PSE but you can try reading the following link that maybe helpful: http://www.texaschicksblogsandpics.com/photography-page/installing-actions-in-photoshop-elements/

Anonymous said...

I dont have the canvaspaintingfx in my action palette. what should i do? thanks!

*aCe* said...

Actually, the canvaspaintingFX is just an example. You have to download and load into Photoshop whatever action you want to use first.

Maybe the link below will help. Skip to Part F to learn more about loading the action into Photoshop.

http://best-photoshop-tutorials.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-to-use-photoshop-actions-tutorial.html

Anonymous said...

i can't click the load action button..i'ts transparent and doesn't work.please help..thanks

Anonymous said...

i can't click the load action button..i'ts transparent and doesn't work.please help..thanks

*aCe* said...

How about double-clicking on your downloaded action. It should open automatically in Photoshop. That is another way to load an action.

Ay Chocolate said...

thank you so much...