8 Up Action Photoshop
Janne Evers
Actions can include steps that let you perform tasks that can't be recorded (for example, using a painting tool). Actions can also include modal controls that let you enter values in a dialog box while playing an action.
Photoshop and Illustrator come with predefined actions installed that helps you perform common tasks. You can use these actions as is, customize them to meet your needs, or create new actions. Actions are stored in sets to help you organize them.
Click the triangle to the left of the set, action, or command in the Actions panel. Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (macOS) the triangle to expand or collapse all actions in a set or all commands in an action.
Ok, here's the thing - I have a batch of photos that I'm planning to treat as a set, i.e. they will all have the same look about them as far as colour balance, satch, contrast, tint, blah blah.
I want to create an action for this, but I want to be able to create the action after I have made all the adjustment layers I need to make and have tweaked them all against each other to get the balance right. I tend to do a lot of backing-and-forthing with pulling one layer up a little, pulling another one down a little, changing the blending mode, etc, and obviously I don't want to record every little adjustment I make that will probably change in a minute anyway. I might do a bazillion little tweaks before I get the layers exactly how I want, and after I have gotten everything right, then I want to be able to select all the adjustment layers and say, "make an action out of these." Possible?
If not, then it seems like the only thing to do is to finish my tweaking, then physically write down every single setting on every adjustment layer, and then delete them all and redo them while recording. That seems ridiculous, and I'm thinking there must be an easier way, but neither Google nor the archive here seems to indicate anything. Certainly I can't be the only person who has ever wanted to do this... ?
3:34AM, 8 December 2008 PDT(permalink)
As far as I know, you are the only person who ever wanted to do this ;-)
Alas, to create an action, Photoshop records the steps you make as you make them and not after you have made them.
So it's time to do all your tweaking and perfect the result, then go through the process, recording as you go along, one final time.
You could record the action, tweaks and all, then expand it to remove the unwanted tweaks.
And no need to write down every step.......record every step in a text file as per instructions here : www.flickr.com/groups/photoshopsupport/discuss/176315/
Note that the log file will just carry on adding everything you do in PS for each and every session.
So once you have performed your edit to conclusion, open the text file and copy/paste/save it to a different file/location for reference when redoing the action :-)
ages ago(permalink)
Can't think of a way to do what you want to do strictly as an action without re-recording. The closest I can think of is this:
1.Create all the adjustment layers as you want them.
2. Group the adjustment layers into their own folder, separate from the background.
3. Replace the background with an empty/white layer
4. Save the document as a TIF or PSD called Adjustments (or something like that).
5. When you have photos you want to apply the adjustment layers to, just open the Adjustments file you created and drag the entire adjustment layer group on top of the file you want to apply them to.
If you have a batch to do, just leave the adjustments file open and keep dragging that adjustments folder and saving. Drag and save, drag and save
If you don't have too many photos, this will still be a time saver, but there's a point where re-recording will be worthwhile. If you're familiar with writing scripts for actions, maybe you can even automate step 5.
ages ago(permalink)
Aspect: Presets are different from actions. You can create presets in bunch of different ways in Photoshop. In almost every adjustment layer you can create a preset. You can create presets for Adobe Camera Raw, and they are almost exactly like the lightroom presets.
And technically speaking you CAN create something after you are done.... technically speaking.
If you call up any action in a text editor you will see that it's really just text, so "technically speaking" if you know the exact context, syntax and character requirements of writing an action ....... you can.
I won't..... but you can if you want to.
In fact presets and scripts are also text files, after a fashion. If you know how to edit/create XML or JAVASCRIPT, you can write those too.
ages ago(permalink)
I was looking at the Page Curl thread yesterday, and looked at an approach making the effect as a Smart Object, and placing it a CC Library. I then tried to place it on an image using an Action, but was unable to record the Place step in the action. A look at the Help pages gave me the impression that I'd need to set up asset sharing, which is more trouble than I'd want to go to, so is there a simple way to place a Library asset using an Action in Photoshop CC?
Incidentally, sharing items via CC Libraries would be a useful way to share image assets with other forum members. I haven't tried it, but you could turn a lot of layers into a Smart Object, and place in a Library. Methinks I'll have to test that idea.
I don't think I can test the shared assets idea because I'm thinking it needs to be accessed via another user's library. Grabbing the item from the shared link just gets you a single rasterized layer, albeit a layer with transparency intact. If anyone out there feels like sharing something from their library, I'd appreciate the chance to test it. Ta
When opens in a browser window click on the Private switch which will toggle to Public, and produce a link. Either post the link here, or PM it to me. I just want to see if I can use it in my library, and if yes, still as an editable vector object. I don't know if the object would be linked back to your library, so edits would be reflected at your end.
I found a simple workaround to this problem : i make a new document at the same size as the item from library, i put all the layers on that document, and save it as a psd. In the action i use place embeded and then convert to layer. The actions work really ok like this. Extra steps for a simple thing, but at least it's something.
I'm pretty new to photoshop. I've recently bought and downloaded Kelly Browns newborn actions. They are great but sometimes they work fine and today the have just stopped working. I'm not sure what I've done , but when I click on an action and try to apply it it just doesn't do the action. I haven't changed my settings, I'm usually in button mode and change if I need to play an action. Can anyone help please? TIA
Actions are nothing more than recorded Photoshop Steps a sequence of using Photoshop tools. Photoshop tools often depend on things like the be a selection to copy something, a targets to be transform. If a tool that depend on something is recorded into an action when that action is played if what the step depends on is not present when the step is played the action will fail with an error message like the command is not available or may not be supported in this version of Photoshop. So if you play a action on a document that does not meet so requirement the action depend on the action will fail. For example if an Action select the background layer and the current document does not have a background layer the action will fail. It is very easy to find out why an action fails. All to need do is expand the action so you can see the Photoshop steps in the action. Highlight the First step. Press and hold the Ctrl or Mac CMD key. Keep that key pressed and Click on the Play button every time you Click play the step highlighted will play and you will see what it does. and the next sep will be highlighted. You can single step the through the action see each step and why a step fails.
Seven years later and this "step method," helped me with an action I hadn't used in years and wasn't working in PhotoShop 2023. I stepped through it and found one step using a pencil instead of a brush. I fixed it manually, even though I would never have known how to execute the entire action on my own. Stitching action. It worked!
Did you ever figure out how to fix the issue? I am having the same problem with Kelly Brown's actions for days. Been trying everything. Did this to me before, but I don't remember what I did that fixed it.
I just fixed it. I realized I was making a copy of the background to work with first and this was preventing certain actions from working. I initiated an action on the background layer itself and it worked properly. Thank you!!!
Like @pax said, I'm afraid that you will have to re-do the adjustments to your image, but instead of creating an action, if these adjustments were actually Adjustments (form the Menu bar, Image > Adjustments), you can do the adjustments as Adjustment Layers and put them into a folder in your layers palette. This way, in the future, you can just drag the folder from one PSD into another, and you'll also have the ability to tweak the adjustments down the road!
AndrewCkid's "solution" works indeed. But that behavior of the Actions recorder not showing after we closed a document we were working on definitely feels like something that should be coded differently.
Another way not to face this issue : keep more than one document opened when recording actions. This way if you have to record a File->Close, the second document will remain there and so will all the usual menus, thus enabling you to stop the recording.
Just for the tip, if you know you'll need to close all documents, hold shift as you close one document, you'll get a prompt asking if you want to save for each doc you'll just need to hold shift and click in the same location...
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