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Using Actions in Photoshop with Free Action

Besides Adobe Photoshop having endless abilities to change a photograph, there are also easy ways to change your photograph with someone’s technique. In the photograph above, I used a photo from a friend, and used an artist’s technique using an “Action” provided by the artist.

An “Action” is a recorded step-by-step of actions being made in Photoshop. The recorded “Actions” save everything you do in Photoshop while it’s being recorded. Whether it’s creating a new layer, adding a filter effect, creating a layer mask, etc, it’s recorded. Many masters of Adobe Photoshop create “Actions” of their favorite effects and share them with others. Some are free and some may come with a price, depending where you choose to get your “Actions”.

Once an artist has perfected their technique, they record their actions and save it. Photoshop saves it as an “Action” file. From there, you can load any photograph, click on the Action and instantly change the photograph to that effect.

In this tutorial, I will show you where to get some free “Actions”, how to add it to Photoshop and how to use it. I will only be using one “Action” in this tutorial [Spooky Portraits], currently my favorite one, from a member on DeviantArt.com, BellaLleb [location to download the free Action]. If you like the “Action”, please join DeviantArt.com and thank BellaLleb for providing it. This free Action took over 200+ steps to do, which takes an enormous amount of time to create. For most people, a lifetime. So please thank BellaLleb.

Tutorial

Step 1. Download the “Action” file from the location I provided earlier. Next, copy that Action file to the folder where Photoshop stores them. The image below gives you two examples, Photoshop CS2 and CS4.

Step 2. Open Photoshop after you copied over the Action file. Whenever you add a new Action, make sure to open Photoshop afterwards so it can load it.

Step 3. Follow the steps provided in the image above and you have the remaining steps of this tutorial. Remember that the Folders hold different Actions, so you have to open the folder by clicking on it to reveal the Actions within it, then select the Action of choice. On [2], I forgot to mention selecting “Load Action”, to select the Action in the Photoshop folder.

If you’ve created a cool effect in Photoshop and want to record it, there is a circular button next to the play button for recording. To find more Actions, here’s the link on DeviantArt.com for the site’s collection of Actions by members.

If you have an amazing Action you’d like me to test and share on my website, email me at andrew[at]gr8tfate.com.

Tutorials