Photoshop Actions

I'm starting this thread as a place to put up your favorite Photoshop actions. Please tell something about the actions, and what they will do when you post them.

Hint: To save your actions they must be in a Set and you save the Set out, not the individual action. I had to .zip it, but Eric was going to add .atn as a "legal" uploadable file type.

You then go to the Actions palette and "load actions" to use the new actions you've downloaded.

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To start I'm putting up a set of 4 High Pass Sharpening actions that make a duplicate of a layer and apply different levels of intensity of a High Pass filter to achieve sharpening. You can add or modify to these the amounts of sharpening you like.

Sometimes I like this affect, sometimes I go back to applying sharpening using Un-Mask Sharpening, it's a good idea to make a copy of the layer and then apply sharpening. I always sharpen last in my work-flow.

But the idea with these is that it's on another layer and is non-destructive.

This technique is from Bruce Fraser on CreativePro.com as an except from his book.

http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/11242-1.html

Thank's, really useful.

This is a great thread. I have a question. Say I have 30,000 digital files, each of which need the same size adjustment, auto levels, and minor unsharpen mask, then perhaps autosave, and maybe auto open the next file, perform that action and so on. Is there an action that can automate these tasks? More importantly, can I use that action AUTOMATICALLY on multiple images at one time so I don't have to keep opening, saving and closing files, file by file? Something like a population macro, in lieu of a single file macro.

Would sure be nice.

Joe

Kelpfish,

This feature has been available in Photoshop for a long time.

Create the macro (action) by recording the sequence of steps on one image file and then stop recording.All the files you want to apply the action to should be in a single folder. Now go to:

File > Automate > Batch

Confirm that the action and action set you want are selected at the top of the dialogue box. Press the "Choose" button to select the folder containing the files you want to modify. Now press "OKAY".

Photoshop will automatically run the action on every file in the folder (and optionally sub-folders). You can choose whether files should be saved under their original name and location or in a new file location. You may need to manually hit the enter key once for each file to complete some file operations, though I believe there are ways to avoid this using options available in the Batch dialogue. See the Photosho Help index for Batch for further details.

This is very powerful. I've used it many times when I needed to resize a large number of JPEG images.

Frogfish (Robert Delfs)

A few years ago I heard from professionl photogs that re-sizing a 35mm scan to your desired print size in many small steps would degrade the image less than one step. In fact, Fred Miranda posted an action that would do this quite nicely. Has there been any change in the manner of PS 7 image hangling that negates the need for this small step resizing?

Yes. PS has added "bicubic smoother" for upsizing and "bicubic sharper" for downsizing. People more experienced than I have said that using these in one step works better than using bicubic in small steps.

Yes.  PS has added "bicubic smoother" for upsizing and "bicubic sharper" for downsizing.  People more experienced than I have said that using these in one step works better than using bicubic in small steps.

Daniel Brown (Adobe Evangelist) has said yes, it's best to upsize in the raw converter.

Cheers

James

Hope I'm not out of line asking this question in this thread. Back from a trip with my Digital Rebel, eTTL Ikelite housing and single DS-125. Well, DS-125 for a day and a half, then available light for the rest of the trip.

I had given up on a high percentage of my shots until I started playing with them via a photo softward program (CompuPic) that I have a bit of experience with. Turns out that I actually have some keepers among those "junk" files.

After spending a ton of time with the program this weekend, and making good progress, my Photoshop "hero" became available on line, again, and he walked me through similar steps in the Photoshop Elements 2.0 that came with the Rebel.

OK, so far. But, the reason he was showing me the new software was that it could "save" the steps in a given process and they could then be used for similar shots. Looks like that option isn't available in Elements 2.0.

He then remembered some software that he has on his Mac that might also perform this function, and he also found that it will now let you "click" on a white spot in the photo and it will then automatically perform a bunch of functions that could save a bunch of steps. Problem is, it looks like Lemke's "Graphic Converter" is only for Macs - and I have Windoze.

So, my question is, is there a simple program for Windows that will do such things? It has been fun learning the CompuPic program for adjusting the shots, but when you don't even have the "one second" recycle time limiting you, you come home with a *LOT* of photos. :-) TIA

BTW, I only had the "kit" 18-55mm lens on the trip, but with that "sharpening" feature in CompuPic, I have some surprisingly good macro shots. I will have the Sigma 50mm macro and "Wally's Diopter" for my upcoming trip, thanks to my study of the "Wetpixel" site. Thanks for all the help.

I've tried to attach a couple of (not so good, but handy) samples.

Kevin Bryant

Savannah

I can only get one photo to attach at a time this morning, but I'll post twice and show a sample done with Photoshop Elements 2.0 of available light with the dReb and Ikelite housing.

Kevin

after. Now I see that the manipulation apparently makes the file much larger. Hmmm. Can't seem to make it small enough to get it to go through. Hmmm, again. Looks like the file type has changed. Think I have it now.

Kevin

thats quite a ncie job ...

i have been looking for a photoshop action that will auto correct for fisheye distortion either by giving it the camera and lense or automatically .. not really needed for underwater but all the ones i can find cost money and i hate paying for stuff.

Anyone know of an action like this ?

Giles

i have been looking for a photoshop action that will auto correct for fisheye distortion either by giving it the camera and lense or automatically .. not really needed for underwater but all the ones i can find cost money and i hate paying for stuff.

 

Anyone know of an action like this ?

 

Giles

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You ask, we deliver PTLens

After reading post #86 in the "Best of Wetpixel > Lighting" forum, I tried using the Enhance > Adjust Color > Color Cast feature in Photoshop Elements 2.0. I suspect that this yielded a more accurate result than what my memory suggested were the right colors.

But, I guess this brings to mind the question, are there any objective rules in this age of digital photography as to what is "accurate"?

Kevin

You ask, we deliver PTLens

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks for that .. funny thing is i found that plug in .. on a site that wanted me to pay quite a bit of money for it ... I can't wait to get home to download it and try it out.

Thanks

Giles

Hi all

I found a couple of actions which you might find useful.

1: Underwater: from what I can tell it replaces the red channel and gets rid of the blue colour cast.

2: backscatter: is supposed to get rid of backscatter when you haven't used a flash.

3: resize: This one I'm not sure about it was with the others but judging by the name it resizes the image, I haven't run this one.

actions.zip

I have used the underwater action and it does work, but requires some after tweeking with hue controls to get the blues right.

This sharpening action converts the image from RGB to LAB color space, selects just the luminosity channel, brings up the USM dialog where you change the sliders from the presets I use, then when you hit OK it applies the USM, then converts the file back to RGB.

Tip of the hat to the late Bruce Fraser for this technique.

Sharpen.zip