Free Photoshop Action

[Hype]

Hi all,

I just wanted share another photoshop action. I kind of like the effect it gives.

What the action will do is put your picture inside a blurred copy of itself. You can see what I mean below.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3536/4034345580_563306f5df.jpg

I got the technique off of the internet and made the action for it and waned to share it.

Pic in Pic Action: http://tr.im/picinpic

As an after thought this would look good with some fancy text at the bottom.


Also just keep in the thoughts of sharing, Here is the link to the other action I made.

Orton Effect Action: http://tr.im/psactdl


Also, Here is a short tutorial showing you how to install an action to photoshop. (I use photoshop CS4 but I believe the process is the same for all Photoshops although I am unsure about elements as I have never used it)

Tutorial: http://tr.im/photoacttut

If I make any more actions I'll post them here also :)

Hope you get some use from them.

[eyerkish]

Thanks for sharing this, Steve. Looking forward to trying it out.

[Hype]

Hiya Eddie,

You are welcome, No point keeping things to your self when you can be sharing ;)

[tekkies]

Hi Steve, thanks...great action. Just a question. Somehow, dont know how or where ?? I changed the angle of the pic inside the pic and there is no way I get it normal again. Also, can I change the size of the pic inside? I am very new to PS and still an idiot as far as this go...

Thanks again for the great posts and tips.

[Hype]

Hello tekkies,

I am not sure why or how you have managed to change the angle. Maybe if you remove and reinstall the action again that may help.

As for changing the size of the inside image you do it using these steps. (Sorry if it don't work on yours as I use CS4).

Step 1.

Open the action so as you have a full list of action steps.

And then click the the little box shown below

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2721/4039751521_439edc6c20_o.jpg

Step 2.

Run the action as you normally would and when it stops it will be asking you for the size of the selection.

You can change it as shown below:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2491/4039751881_8074177643_o.jpg

1. This is the width.

2. This is a link, if selected it will keep both width and height as the same aspect ratio

3. This is the height.

Once you have changed there to how you want it then click the tick show below:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2751/4039785539_2e2dbd16c9_o.jpg

Now the action should continue playing.

I hope these instructions are ok. If you still have problems then let me know and I'll make another video tutorial. :)

Good luck!

[coffee]

Hi Steve. I have a question for you about creating an action. I understand most of it, but haven't figured out one thing in particular.

In your OE action, you created pop up windows that let you adjust the layer before it is adjusted, then when applying, the action contiues to the next part of it.

My question specifically:
I have noise ninja plug in for CS4. One of my actions is it creates a new layer with the name NN. Then I manually go into NN and adjust. As part of this action, I want the action to auto open the plugin and stop there so I can adjust it, but I haven't figured out how to "stop" the action once I open the NN window. How is this done?

I appreciate the help.

[Hype]

Hello Joseph,

Whilst recording your action, Click the options icon for the actions.

Select "Insert Menu Item". You will get a pop up which you can ignore, its just waiting for you to select something.

Whilst the pop up is still on the screen select "Filter/Picturecode/Noiseninja" from top of your screen.

This will NOT bring up noise ninja whilst recording but will add the option to your action.

What you can do now is stop recording, Set your image back to before the start of your action. Play the action. This will run through and give you the Noiseninja window.

When you have set your NN options click ok then restart recording to finish you action.

Hope this helps you, if not give me a shout again and I'll post one of my tutorials. (Any excuse to make one of those. haha)

[coffee]

Hello Joseph,

Whilst recording your action, Click the options icon for the actions.

Select "Insert Menu Item". You will get a pop up which you can ignore, its just waiting for you to select something.

Whilst the pop up is still on the screen select "Filter/Picturecode/Noiseninja" from top of your screen.

This will NOT bring up noise ninja whilst recording but will add the option to your action.

What you can do now is stop recording, Set your image back to before the start of your action. Play the action. This will run through and give you the Noiseninja window.

When you have set your NN options click ok then restart recording to finish you action.

Hope this helps you, if not give me a shout again and I'll post one of my tutorials. (Any excuse to make one of those. haha)

This is great info Steve. I have my entire work flow on actions to speed things up. I don't have the actions actually make any adjustment, just to add a layer with a name, then I always manually bring up the adjustment and adjust. I'm assuming you can bring up any adjustment windows like saturation and such using actions then if you can third party programs. This is great. This will save me a lot of time if the action can bring up the adjustment window for me. I will try this later this afternoon when the child's napping. Thanks again Steve, can't wait to re-do and automate things further. :)

[Hype]

You are very welcome :)

[coffee]

You are very welcome :)

You are the man Steve. Thanks again, it worked great. This leads me to another question that would speed things up even faster if you know the answer. Is there a way that when one action ends, it starts another action?

I think you should add "Action Master" to your sig. :)

[Hype]

Haha, Thank you Joseph.

However, I don't think there is a way to auto play actions. Something I have not looked in to is Photoshop scripts. Maybe there is something like that which could help, But as I say I have never looked in to the script side. Not even sure how they work :(

Anyway, Glad I helped you :)

[Hype]

Joseph,

I have had another look at the actions.

whilst recording an action you can click on another action, It will allow you to play the action whilst still recording, This will add the action to that of the one you are recording.

That's the only way I found to play 1 action from another.

Give it a go and let me know if thats what you was after.

Edit 1: Haha, Just read this to myself, Tough one to follow what I was saying, lol

Edit 2: I found it works on some actions but not others. I am unsure why so I guess your have to test with yours.

Edit 3: On further testing I have found it will not work on actions that end with a stop.
My Pic in pic action ended with its own stop and wouldn't work until I disabled the stop, then it worked.

Again hope it helps you.

[dkippen]

Steve -

Thank you for sharing these actions and taking the time to go through and explain them. I can do macros in word - but clueless in creating actions. Wonderful job!

[ladyups]

Thanks, Steve, for sharing these actions and for doing such a wonderful job of explaining them too.

This is why this group is so great....

[coffee]

Steve (Action Master), you are right. I did a little researching into actions after you lit a fire under my as*. You are right there are a few way to do this. You can add one action to another by just continuing to record at the end of one action. And you are right about the "stop" also.

I was going to try and create an action and just record all of my existing actions into it in a string, but that would actually be more work I think than just starting over because they were created individually and would need to be edited to make them work right. This afternoon I'm going to take the time can't wait to get it done.

And, what Deb and Mary said. Thanks for taking the time to help out on this. I've never really taken the time to learn about actions in the way that would really save time, but when I saw that you were working with them and seemed to be good at them, it sparked an interest and I need to get done to save a lot of clicking and time.

[Hype]

Hi all,

You are all very welcome, I believe knowledge is to be shared and no point being part of a community like this and not share what you know.

I am just glad that people get some use from it. :)

[coffee]

I would like to add something most might not know about concerning actions in CS4, probably CS3 too.

There are many action in PS that aren't in the default actions drop-down menu that you may not have seen, or even known they were there. There are literally hundreds of default actions that are somewhat hidden away here. To get them:

In the actions pain, hit the options button in the top right. There you will get a drop down list that has the following options:
Commands
Frames
Image Effects
Production
Text Effects
Textures
Video Action

Just click on one of these and you will see that they are now added in your actions pain and are ready to use. There are many many there that are very nice.

[verikos]

Thanks Joseph. I hadn't noticed them! Thank you too Steve! Sorry if I'm hijacking the thread a little, but I don't suppose anyone knows of any good 'plug-ins' for Lightroom2??

[coffee]

Just tried you frame action on the first post. Very cool affect.

[Hype]

Denise,

You could try some from HERE (http://www.photographers-toolbox.com/plugins.php).

I personally use the enfuse plugin and I like it very much.

Hope that helps you.

Edit: This is my 100th post. :)

[coffee]

Hi all,

You are all very welcome, I believe knowledge is to be shared and no point being part of a community like this and not share what you know.

I am just glad that people get some use from it. :)

I was able to spend some time creating one big action of my entire workflow and it is up and running great. A lot of little nuances involved in making something like this since I don't have much experience with it.

If you have CS3/4, and would like to try it out, Pm me with your email and I can send it to you. If you don't have the latest Noise Ninja plugin for PS, then it will stop at the beginning of the action. You would have to delete this part of the action to get it to run through.

Keep in mind the action itself doesn't edit or alter your image at all, it only adds necessary layers and adjustment layers in a certain order. You edit it along the way as to how you want it to look.

If anyone requests it I will have to spend a little time writing up a little something as to what the layers are for in the workflow.

Layers that are included:
NN for noise reduction
PS noise reduction
Clone and Heal
Dodge and Burn
Hue and Saturation
Vibrance
Levels
Curves

Also in the action set, but are their own individual action is:
Steve's Orton Affect
Sharpen layer
Save As PSD
Save As jpg

I'm also going to incorporate the sharpening layer on to the end of this action once I figure out a good way to do it.

[Hype]

Thank you Joseph.

I managed to have a quick play with the action this morning, I like it a lot.

The workflow is great and to have it all in 1 works very well, Thank you.