| It’s fairly easy to record your own action. To start off, go to
the actions palette now click on the folder icon. This will create
your own set.
Give it a name in the pop up window.
Now you can press the New Action icon.
Enter a name for your new action (ie. scanned in image size, color balance adjustment, etc.)
Now all you have to do is record your action by pressing Play. When you have completed all of your actions (going through your process as you would normally) you can press the Red circle Stop button. You can take your time when recording an action; it only remembers specific commands, not how much time it took you between steps.
Remember that an action is just a set of commands or steps that
you would take within Photoshop (it can ‘record’ about anything you
can do). You could record an action to make a simple 2 step image
adjustment. By having it as an action in your actions palette, you
can just open the other files and instead of having to go through
the actual steps it would take to end up with the same result (same
process) you can just press one button: Play (on your new action).
An action is basically an automation step to simplify your workflow
(for example if there’s a single process you find yourself doing on
many of images); it saves lots of time. Here just record a simple action as I’m doing. I’m creating an action called imageweb. Once I press record I’m going to the Image: Image Size and changing the resolution to 72 for the web.
Once I press OK the step will be recorded (and anything
else I do in the dialog box such as change the image width) in the
action step.
Once you have completed your steps, just press stop.
Actions can be as simple as a one-step process but can still save you time (press one button). Now open another image. With your actions palette open, select your action (just the name of it) which should already be there; and press PLAY.
This will run the action on the document you’re working on. Instant automation. You can see it's applied the same step that you recorded simply by pressing play.
As a basic Photoshop user moving on, be aware of this tremendous power. Actions can get really advanced with stops, etc. You can even create and run entire batches to create templates out of a folder of files. The possibilities are endless! Now, get my full Basic Photoshop training on video here for less than $50. |
