Creating Actions Part 2

Some Practical and Useful Applications to Create Actions for

Following is a list of tasks for which actions can save you a lot of time, a description of what the action does and a step by step procedure for creating the action, followed by an action download.

Each action described below is dependent upon the following; you must have an image open in PhotoShop on your desktop, you must have completed steps #1 - 6 in the instructions for Creating Actions - Part 1.

Save and Close

(Saves and closes an image into a generic folder). This is a must have for your computer and is the key to making other actions that have a save and close step function properly. Create this action First

Place an untitled folder on your desktop (mac) or in your 'c' drive (win)
name the folder; 'transient' or 'processed' or 'fred', what ever you want. This is the folder where your images will be after the action has been performed.
If you do not already have an image open on your desktop, do that now.
Perform steps #1 - 8, described in Creating Actions.
save as shift+com+s (mac), shift+ctrl+s (win). Do Not 'Save' - if you 'save' your image you will be rewriting the original file. If you 'save as' you are creating a new file. A dialogue box will open asking where you want to save the image. Navigate to the folder you created on your desktop (or 'C' drive). In addition to the location for the saved file, you may also indicate the type of file, i.e. .psd, .tiff, .jpg, etc.
Click OK Depending upon the file type you indicated, another dialogue now will open asking for the type of compression you want for your tiff files, or the quality level of your .jpg files, etc. Indicate your desired parameters.
Click OK The dialogue box will disappear leaving only your image in the window.
Close the image.
Stop Recording Click on the black square icon on the bottom of the actions palette.

All of your processed images are now in the folder on your desktop or C drive. You now should create another folder with a less generic name and move these images to that folder. Do Not simply change the name of the generic folder, for some reason that fouls up the way actions find locations, so create and rename the new folder for your images.

Point To Ponder

This is a generic action that saves an action processed image. Anytime you use this action it will perform the same process(es) on every image you indicate. If you write the action to save as level 12 jpgs, it will save all the images that you use that action on as level 12 jpgs You must write another action if you would like images saved in another format, tiff for example.

Black & White Conversion

There are various conversion methods available, this is just a good generic 'quickie'. Image open on the desktop / follow steps #1 - 8 Creating Actions / transient folder on desktop

Desaturate shift+com+u (mac), shift+ctrl+u (win) this will desaturate the colors in your image, making it tones of grey but maintaining the RGB mode necessary for printing. Desaturation typically makes an image look flat. The next step increases the contrast.
Contrast Adjustment com+l (mac), ctrl+l (win) This will open the levels dialogue box. The default numerical values indicated for input are 0 on the shadow end, 1.0 for gamma or midtones, and 255 for the highlight end. Other numbers for output 0, 255 you do not need to worry about now. The input values should be changed to 5, 1.0, 250. This compresses the tonal values of the images (brings the ends closer to the middle) creating more contrast.
Click OK
Stop Recording (Black square icon on the bottom of the actions palette).

This action can be used repeatedly on the same image to continue increasing the contrast. This action does not save and close the image, but, you can use the previous action for that.

Point To Ponder

This again is an action that creates a generic Black and White image. What constitutes a great black and white image is very subjective. You may tweek the adjustment in contrast by using the action more than once on the same image, or set up your action so that it pauses when it opens the levels dialogue box so that you may fine tune the levels for each image. (more info on 'pausing mid-action' in Actions - Part 3)

The next procedure involves combining some steps included in previous 'actions' to create a new action.

Batch Processing Files for Hot 100 Images

Optimizes files for uploading through Lab Link for Hot 100, 3½x5, 4x5 or 4x6 images.

As with previous actions; image open / steps #1 - 8 Creating Actions / Transient folder on desktop

Resize your Image. Go to File > Automate > Fit Image In the dialogue box that opens, enter 1800 in the box that indicates the height and 1800 in the box that indicates the width.
Click OK (Do not stop recording).
At this point you have resized the image, now you need to send it somewhere. There are two ways to do this.
The First way - go to your actions palette, select (highlight) the Save & Close action, select 'play' (triangle pointy thingie on the bottom of the actions palette). The image should disappear, then click on, . . .
Stop Recording (Black square icon on the bottom of the actions palette) The image should be in your transient (or whatever you named it) folder on your desktop/C drive.
The Second way will be discussed in detail in the up coming & highly anticipated, Actions - Episode 3 / Return of the Palette Options.