Creating Actions

[Saphire]

Can anyone tell me how to create actions in CS. I have read tururals but can't seem to seem to get them to flow, I still have do things in steps. I have tried simple things like making my own frames with not much luck, is there an easy way to do it.

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by Saphire

Can anyone tell me how to create actions in CS. I have read tururals but can't seem to seem to get them to flow, I still have do things in steps. I have tried simple things like making my own frames with not much luck, is there an easy way to do it.

Actions are a piece of cake and essential for doing many tasks to a series of files. Essentially you are just recording a series of activities so they can be repeated.

This is how I do it, though some people may have their own variation.

• 1. Find the actions palette and in the drop down menu go to create new Action, give it a name etc and OK it. At this point the recorder is working and everything you do now will be recorded into the action.
  2. Open a file in the folder you are working on, tbh anyone will do. Do all the things you want to do to get to the finished picture. Then save the file to the desktop, and close the file.
  3. Go to the Actions palette and click on the stop button. You are done.
  4. To run the action and apply it to a folder of images go to Automate, Batch. In the dialogue that appears, you need to choose your action, specify a source and destination folder.
  5. Before you click OK check the boxes for Overide Action 'Open' Commands and 'Close' Commands.
  6. If you just want toapply it to one image then Open the picture and just find the action in the Actions palette and press Play.

[Saphire]

Thank you Stephen I will have a go with that tomorrow it seems a little easier to do than the instructions I have.

[Snowyowl]

Thanks, Stephen. Now if I could figure out how to create frames I'd be all set.

[Gidders]

There was a thread on the forum somewhere which Steve Randles started in which he posted some frame creating actions. I also posted some that I had written but the thread doesn't seen to exist anymore

Attached are action set Steve created plus the set I created. To install these, open Photoshop, and select the Actions palette. Then open the zip file and drag the action(s) onto the Actions palette.

To get an understanding of how these work click on the > symbol next to the action set to expand to see the individual actions within the set. Then click the > next to the particular action to expand that to see the steps with in it. Some of the steps will also have a > and if you click that it will show the dialogue settings for that step.

To see what the action is doing, open an image, select the first step of an action (not the action itself), hold down the CTRL key and click play and this will pl;ay the first command only. Keep holding CTRL and ckick play again to play the next step & so on