Actions in action, an introduction

Many things that we do in Photoshop are repetitive , things like getting a picture ready to post on the internet, add no visual value, are the same for each image and let’s face it, are boring to do, likely to be forgotten and lead to problems down the road.

However automating these steps is easily done through the power of Photoshop actions.
Actions can be looked upon as a mini program that you write that are saved and can be reused.

So what is involved in resizing an image to appear here?

Let’s say that an image posted here must be no more than 700 pixels on the longest side. This can be recorded as an action and executed with one click regardless of the original image size, let’s take a look at the steps.


Step 1

Ensure that you have the image open and flattened to one layer. As you can see from this size box, the image I have open is 3504 x 2336 pixels which is to large to display in most bulletin boards.




Step 2

Now we get around to recording the action, with the actions window open, click on the folder button to create a new set of actions.





Step 3

Change the name in the resulting popup to describe the action you are recording, in this case I have called it “Resize for Web”



Step 4

Next click on the new action button which brings up the new action dialogue box in which you should once again change the name. After hitting the ‘Record’ button, everything you do until you hit the stop recording will be recorded







Notice that the record icon has now turned red, to indicate that it is recording.



Step 5

The key to resizing the image is not to use the image size dialogue, but instead use the File > Automate > Fit Image dialogue. This will constrain the longest side of the image to the figure that you enter in pixels, regardless of weather the longest side is the vertical or horizontal





In this case I have set the maximum dimension to 700 pixels on both sides.
Now click OK

[IMG http://homepage.mac.com/alistairflood/.Pictures/Topix/Actions/FitImage2.jpg[/IMG]


We are now done with the recording of the action, so click on the stop recording button. The action can be played back at any time simply by clicking on the action and then clicking the Play button.



In CS 3, we can take things one step further

Step 6

CS 3 has a new function that allows actions to be played back by a single click. To start off this process, click on the arrow to launch the fly out menu, then click on the Button Mode.








Here we have explored an introduction to Actions, they can be simple as we have seen or very complicated, but what ever they are, they are useful. Not only can they be used in Photoshop on individual images but also through the bridge to work on multiple images at once. Your imagination is the only limiting factor. To get the creative juices flowing, I’m planning a couple of additional tutorials, getting progressively more complicated to show their power.