Actions

Working with Actions

Actions are the main automation tools and are similar to Macros. Actions record all your tasks. The action palette records each click of the mouse. After the task is completed, click the stop button to stop the recording. The information is stored in an action file, a text that is assigned an .atn extension. Let us have a look at the options available in an action palette.

The Actions Palette

Parts of an Action Palette.

• Transport controls. Where you record, stop, play, create new, and delete actions.
• Action sets. These collapsible folders contain groups of actions. Actions can be saved as sets, or groups. Individual actions must be included in a set for the save Action function to work.
• Actions. Can be expanded to see the actual settings used in each step.
• Toggle Step box. Uncheck to skip certain steps of an action.
• Toggle box for dialogs. To pause the action.

Playing Actions. When you apply an action to an image you call this playing or running an action. To run action on an image open the action palette by selecting Window > Actions to open it. Select an action from the actions palette by clicking it. Click the play button at the bottom of the palette. Some preset actions display a dialog box containing information the creator wants you to read. If this appears, read the message and then click ok. Photoshop will run the action on its own. The action will complete.

To create your own actions open the Actions palette and the image you want to work on. Click the new action icon. Select a name and recording options, and assign a keyboard shortcut to your action by choosing a function key and modifiers. Click the record icon. Perform all the steps you want to include in the action. Click the Stop icon.

Note: You can add pauses and comments to pause an action and allow performing the manual work and then continuing the action. You can add modal steps for making adjustments to dialog boxes as you are running actions. You can modify actions after they have been recorded.

Multiple Images

You can process multiple images by applying the same action to a group of images. This is possible by creating a new folder and copying the images to the folder that you want to process. This will ensure that if something goes wrong the original images are still intact.