A few words about Actions;
I couldn't write an entire chapter on actions here, so the information that is on this page is just basic, and is meant just to get you started with the actions palette..There is alot more to know about actions ; you will learn them as you practice using them.
Actions are one of the best new things about Photoshop 4. The actions pallet works like a tape recorder..you can record what you do step by step , and save it as an atn file.. You can use it for repetitive tasks, or for complicated tasks that require alot of steps. You can find several actions on the Photoshop4 application cd rom. You can even download and run actions that other people have made. There are several places online that collect actions from several Photoshop users, and make them available to the public for free. There are some great effects available here. The most popular place for actions is the action exchange they now allow users to upload their own (untested) actions, so there are hundreds of them. To use them, download them, move them into your Photoshop directory. (I made a folder called actions and put it in the plugins directory) And then open Photoshop and go to the actions palette.
Clicking on the arrow in the upper right will reveal a menu that gives you options like load actions, reset actions, clear actions, save actions and button mode. To use an action you have downloaded, click load actions, and navigate to the place you stored the actions. then (If the action says use button mode, click on button mode) click on the action itself. if it is in button mode, when it turns red, it is running. most of them have directions as to what you need to do to run the action, they have a read me file with the atn file zipped together. If the action isn't in button mode click the "play" button at the bottom to run the action.
To record your own action, open a file and before you take any action upon it uncheck button mode to put it in normal mode, and choose new action from the flyout menu. The dialog box will ask you for a title, you can type one and click record. this will start the action recording. There are items in the flyout menu that allow you to insert a stop or a menu item, start recording, stop recording. All of these buttons are also at the bottom of the pallet. when you are finished recording, click stop. It is pretty self explanatory, I have made several actions for my own use and there are even some on the Photoshop CD that you can play with... most Photoshop users love actions :) I think you will see why.
Back | Home |tutorials| email | next