Automating Photoshop with Actions

Automating Photoshop With Actions - Introduction

Let's face it, you're lazy. It's okay, no one's looking. We're all friends here. Between you and me, though, you don't really like to work. At least, not when it comes to the boring stuff. Sure, you enjoy working when you get to do things that are fun, interesting or challenging. Everyone likes to show off their skills. But when it comes to those repetitive, mundane, no-brainer tasks (affectionately known as "grunt work") that seem to take up way too much of your life, even when you're on someone else's time, you'd be more than happy to pass those things off to someone else while you head off for a well-deserved extended coffee break.
What if you could pass many of those repetitive tasks off to Photoshop? What if there was a way that you could run through something once while Photoshop watches, paying close attention to each step, and then from that point on, whenever you need the work done, you could just let Photoshop do it for you? Good news! Photoshop is ready and willing to free you from the boredom of repetition! Of course, good news is usually followed by bad news, and the bad news is that Photoshop can't do absolutely everything for you, which is actually good news since we'd all be out of a job if it could. There are certain things that Photoshop simply can't do on its own. For example, you couldn't select someone in a photo with the Lasso Tool and then expect Photoshop to automatically know how to select someone in any photo from that point on. Maybe one day, but we're not quite there yet. Even so, there's still plenty of things Photoshop can do automatically for you once you show it how. In fact, as you become more familiar with using actions, learning what you can and can't do with them, and even how to get around some of the things you wouldn't normally think you'd be able to do, you'll probably find yourself coming up with some pretty amazing and elaborate stuff! Imagine completing work on a complicated, time-consuming, fifty-step photo effect and then being able to instantly recreate that same effect on a different photo, or on as many photos as you like, simply by pressing Play on an action! Now you're starting to see the possibilities!
Of course, actions can be used with much simpler tasks as well, as we'll see.

Photoshop Actions: The Essential Non-Essentials, Essentially

This Photoshop tutorial is copyright © 2008 Steve Patterson, Photoshop Essentials.com. Not to be reprinted or redistributed without permission. If you see this message, it means this website is displaying this tutorial without permission. Technically speaking, actions are not what you would call absolutely essential when working in Photoshop. By that, I mean there's nothing you can do in Photoshop with an action that you couldn't do without using an action. You could go your entire life without ever using them if you really wanted to. Actions were designed purely to make your life easier, sort of like how you could argue that it's not absolutely essential to know how to drive a car (or at least know someone who's willing to drive you around). Technically, you could walk from place to place and you'd eventually end up at your destination, but environmental, financial and health benefits aside, why spend hours getting there by foot when a car would have taken you to the same place in a fraction of the time?
Imagine that you had a hundred or even a thousand (or more!) photos that you had to resize for print or for the web, and you had to sit at your computer resizing each one individually. At best, you may find yourself getting really good at using keyboard shortcuts, but it would still take you a long time to resize them all, time that could have been spent taking more photos! With actions, you could resize one of the images, save the process as an action, and then let Photoshop automatically resize the rest for you! Or let's say you wanted to add a copyright watermark to all the photos. Again, you could add it to each image individually, or you could add it to one image, save the steps as an action, and then sit back while Photoshop does the rest! These are just a couple of basic examples of how you can put Photoshop to work for you using actions. With a little thought and some practice, there's no telling how many uses you'll come up with for them!

Fear, Anxiety And Confusion, Oh My!

This Photoshop tutorial is copyright © 2008 Steve Patterson, Photoshop Essentials.com. Not to be reprinted or redistributed without permission. If you see this message, it means this website is displaying this tutorial without permission. As amazingly helpful and wonderful as actions are, many Photoshop users, even long-time users, stay as far away from actions as possible, with fear, anxiety and confusion being the biggest reasons. Many people press the Record button and then suddenly feel like the little red button in the Actions palette is watching them, mocking them, laughing at them. Sweat starts pouring down their face, hands start shaking, and in no time, they're in the grips of a full-blown panic attack! The reason is because the controls for recording and playing actions look very much like the traditional controls you find on most recording devices, and since most recording devices record everything in real time, people mistakenly assume that once you press Record in the Actions palette, Photoshop is also recording everything in real time. They click through the steps as quickly as possible before Photoshop loses patience with them, which causes them to panic, which leads to mistakes that cause even more panicking. Then, suddenly, they realize they missed a step somewhere, the whole thing looks completely wrong, and before they know it, they're in such a mess that they hit the Escape key for dear life, promising themselves never to go through that nightmare again.
If this sounds like you, take a few deep breaths and relax. Just chill. There's absolutely no reason to rush or panic when recording actions because they are not recorded in real time. Let' s say that again just to be clear. Actions are not recorded in real time. You could press the Record button, leave the house, go out for dinner and a movie, come back, watch some tv, take a shower, and then, hours later, come back to your computer to actually work through the steps necessary for your action and Photoshop wouldn't care. Not even a little. All Photoshop records are the steps themselves, not how long it took you to do them or how much time you wasted in between steps. Feel free to take as much time as you need recording an action. Even if you make a mistake, which you will from time to time no matter how long you've been using actions, you can easily go back and make changes later since actions are completely editable. Actions are meant to make your life easier, not stress you out.

Actions Compatibility

This Photoshop tutorial is copyright © 2008 Steve Patterson, Photoshop Essentials.com. Not to be reprinted or redistributed without permission. If you see this message, it means this website is displaying this tutorial without permission. Another great thing about actions is how portable they are. Generally speaking, you can record an action in any version of Photoshop and it will work in any other version of Photoshop! Actions are even cross-platform compatible, meaning that an action recorded on a PC will work on a Mac and vice versa!
Now, notice that I did say "generally speaking", and that's because you can run into situations where an action recorded in one version of Photoshop will not work in a different version, at least not without some editing. A little common sense, though, explains why. If you're recording an action in Photoshop CS3, for example, and your action uses a feature that's new in CS3, and then you load that action into an earlier version of Photoshop, one where the feature isn't available, the action won't work. Why? Because the action uses a feature that's only available in Photoshop CS3. In most cases, you should be fine using actions that were recorded in older versions of Photoshop, since most of the features from older versions are still available in the newest versions. But if you're recording an action in a newer version of Photoshop and you know it's going to be used with older versions, you'll want to stick to using features and commands that are available in older versions as well. See? Common sense stuff.

The Actions Palette

This Photoshop tutorial is copyright © 2008 Steve Patterson, Photoshop Essentials.com. Not to be reprinted or redistributed without permission. If you see this message, it means this website is displaying this tutorial without permission. A little later on, we'll see how to record a simple action so you can get a feel for how they work. Before we record anything though, we should first take a look at Command Central for actions in Photoshop - the Actions palette. The Actions palette is where anything and everything related to actions is done, from recording and playing them to saving, loading, editing, deleting, and organizing them. By default, the Actions palette is grouped in beside the History palette, even though the two palettes have nothing to do with each other. Also by default, the History palette is the one "in focus", meaning that it's the one visible while the Actions palette is hiding behind it. You'll need to click on the Actions palette's name tab to bring it to the front:

The Actions palette.

If, for some reason, the Actions palette is not open on your screen, you can access it by going up to the Window menu at the top of the screen and choosing Actions. As you can see, there really isn't much going on inside the Actions palette at first, but let's take a closer look at what's there.

The Controls

If you look down at the very bottom of the Actions palette, you'll see a series of icons, similar to what we see with most of Photoshop's palettes:

The icons at the bottom of the Actions palette.

As I mentioned earlier, notice how the three icons on the left look very similar to traditional recording device controls, and in fact, they represent the exact same functions. Starting from the left (the square icon), we have Stop, Record, and Play, followed by the New Action Set icon, the New Action icon, and finally, the standard Trash Bin icon for deleting actions and action sets.

The Palette Menu

As with all of the palettes in Photoshop, the Actions palette comes with its own fly-out menu where we can access various options and commands, as well as load in some additional action sets. I'm using Photoshop CS3 here, and if you are as well, you can access the fly-out menu by clicking on the menu icon in the top right corner of the Actions palette. If you're using an older version of Photoshop, you'll see a small right-pointing arrow in the top right corner of the palette. Click on it to access the palette menu:

Click on the menu icon (Photoshop CS3) or the right-pointing arrow (Photoshop CS2 and earlier) in the top right corner to access the fly-out menu.

All of the commands we just looked at along the bottom of the Actions palette (Stop, Record, Play, New Action Set, New Action, and Delete) are available in the fly-out menu, so there's a bit of repetition here (as there is pretty much everywhere in Photoshop), along with a few additional commands for editing actions, like Insert Menu Item, Insert Stop, and Insert Path. The fly-out menu is also where we find the options for loading, saving, replacing, resetting, and clearing actions. These are the menu options you'll use most often.
At the very bottom of the fly-out menu is where we find additional action sets that are installed with Photoshop, like Frames, Image Effects, and Text Effects, along with others. Some of the actions you'll find in these sets can actually be somewhat useful, but unlike the Default Actions set, they are not loaded automatically for us. We'll look at how to load these additional action sets in when we take a closer look at Photoshop's default and built-in actions next!

Photoshop's Default Actions Set

This Photoshop tutorial is copyright © 2008 Steve Patterson, Photoshop Essentials.com. Not to be reprinted or redistributed without permission. If you see this message, it means this website is displaying this tutorial without permission. When we first bring up the Actions palette, we see that Photoshop has loaded a set of actions for us, with the descriptive name "Default Actions":

The "Default Actions" set in the Actions palette.

The Difference Between An "Action" And An "Action Set"

Before we continue, we need to understand the difference between an action and an action set. If you look closely at the actions palette, you'll see a folder icon to the left of the words "Default Actions", and that's essentially what an action set is. It's a folder that contains your actions, just like a folder in a filing cabinet might contain various forms, receipts, and what not. In this case, the Default Actions folder (action set) contains various actions that are automatically loaded into Photoshop for us.
So where are the actions then? They're inside the folder, which brings up the question, "Okay, so how do I open the folder?" To open (and close) a folder, simply click on the triangle to the left of the folder. This will "twirl open" (I love saying that for some reason) the folder, or if the folder was already open, it will close it. Go ahead and click on the triangle. You'll see the folder open and all of the actions inside of it will appear:

The actions are now visible inside the action set.

Different Default Actions In Photoshop CS2

As I mentioned, I'm using Photoshop CS3 here, but the default actions shown above are the same default actions that Adobe has been including with Photoshop for years, with one exception. For whatever reason, when Adobe released Photoshop CS2, they decided to replace the usual default actions with new ones. If you're using Photoshop CS2, you'll see these default actions instead:

The usual default actions were replaced with new ones in Photoshop CS2.

Notice how the name of each action in the list contains the word "workspaces", and that's because the only thing these actions do is allow you to select from the various workspaces that Photoshop comes with. Without getting into details about what workspaces are, let's just say that these default actions in Photoshop CS2 are about as useless as they come. Obviously, the folks at Adobe felt the same way since they switched back to the classic default actions in Photoshop CS3.
Fortunately, if you're using Photoshop CS2 and you want access to those classic default actions, all you need to do is click on the small, right-pointing arrow in the top right corner of the Actions palette to bring up the fly-out menu, then click on Sample Actions from the list of additional action sets at the bottom of the menu:

Selecting "Sample Actions" from the list of additional actions in Photoshop CS2.

As soon as you select "Sample Actions" from the list, you'll see the Sample Actions action set appear in the Actions palette directly below the Default Actions set. Click on the triangle to twirl open the Sample Actions folder and you'll see all of the individual actions inside of it. These are the exact same actions that ship as the Default Actions with other versions of Photoshop:

The Sample Actions set in Photoshop CS2 contains the default actions from other versions of Photoshop.

Again, the Sample Actions set is only available in Photoshop CS2 and only because Adobe chose to replace the default actions in CS2 with new ones. From this point on, when I say "default actions" or "Default Actions set", if you're using Photoshop CS2, just know that I'm referring to the actions in your Sample Actions set, which are the default actions in all other versions of Photoshop.

Photoshop's Default Actions

Now that we've cleared up that little issue for Photoshop CS2 users, let's take a look at some of the default actions that Photoshop installs for us. Believe it or not, some of them are actually kind of useful, especially if you're pressed for time and just need a quick and dirty effect. There's 12 different actions that install as part of the Default Actions set, and while we won't look at all of them since you can easily do that on your own, let's check out the first one so we can get a sense of how actions work.

The "Vignette" Default Action

At the top of the list of default actions is one named Vignette (selection):

The "Vignette (selection)" default action.

This action was put together for us by the good folks at Adobe and contains all of the steps necessary to add a classic vignette effect to a photo. The reason Adobe added "(selection)" in the name is because before we run the action, we need to first draw out a selection where we want the vignette to appear. Drawing manual selections isn't something that tends to work well when recorded as part of an action, so Adobe left it up to us to draw a selection first on our own. Some of the other default actions contain "(type)" after their name, and that's because they're meant to be used specifically with type, so you'll want to make sure you've added some type to your document and that you have the type layer selected in the Layers palette before running them. You'll also find an action called "Sepia Toning" with "(layer)" after the name. The "(layer)" part simply tells us that the sepia effect will be applied to whichever layer you currently have selected. With our Vignette selection, we need to draw a selection, but then once we've drawn a selection, all we'll need to do is play the action and Photoshop will do the rest for us!
Here's the photo I want to add a classic vignette to:

The original photo.

As I mentioned, we need to draw out a selection inside the image before we can run the action, so I'll select the Elliptical Marquee Tool from the Tools palette and I'll use it to drag out an elliptical selection roughly in the center of the image:

The image after dragging out a selection with the Elliptical Marquee Tool.

Before we run the action, let's take a quick look our Layers palette, where we can see that currently, we have only one layer, the Background layer, which contains the original photo. Nothing has been done to the image yet, with the exception of the selection I added a moment ago:

The Layers palette showing the original image on the Background layer.

Playing The Action

To play the Vignette action, or any action for that matter, all we need to do is select it in the Actions palette (the currently selected action is highlighted in blue) and then click on the Play icon at the bottom of the palette:

Select the Vignette action, then click on the Play icon.

As soon as we click Play, Photoshop begins running through all the steps necessary to complete our effect. In this case, one of the steps involves us choosing a feather radius for the selection we added a moment ago. Feathering a selection makes the selection edges softer. The greater the feather radius, the softer the edges. Now, Adobe could have included a specific feather radius as part of the action, which would avoid us having to choose one ourselves, but since every photo is different, it's preferable that we have the ability to set the feather radius ourselves on an image-by-image basis. We'll learn how to add the option to make changes like this with actions later on. For now, we'll just continue on with our vignette action.
Since we need to specify a feather radius as part of the action, Photoshop automatically pops up the Feather Selection dialog box for us. The default feather radius is 5 pixels which is a bit too small for our vignette effect. I'm going to set my feather radius to 20 pixels, which will make my selection edges nice and soft. Depending on the size of your image, you may want to increase the radius value even further:

Photoshop's Feather Selection dialog box. Higher radius values result in softer selection edges.

Click OK when you're done to close the dialog box. The feather radius is the only option we need to set manually with this action, so Photoshop continues on at this point and completes the vignette effect for us. Here's my final result. Remember, all I had to do was drag out an initial selection and then choose a feather radius. Photoshop did everything else as part of the Vignette action:

The completed effect after running the Vignette action.

Not bad at all, especially considering how little work I had to do myself. Now that the effect is complete, let's take another look at our Layers palette:

The Layers palette after running the Vignette action.

Before we ran the action, all we had in the Layers palette was a single layer, the Background layer. With the action and the effect now complete, we can see that Photoshop has added two more layers for us above the Background layer. We can even see by looking at the layer preview thumbnails that the middle layer, "Layer 2", has been filled with solid white and that the top layer, "Layer 1", contains only the part of the original image that was within the initial selection I made. Everything outside of the selection has been deleted. All of this was done automatically by Photoshop as part of the Vignette action.

Viewing The Steps In An Action

If you recall from our look at the difference between an action and an action set in Photoshop, we learned that an action set is really nothing more than a folder, and that individual actions are placed inside the folder. We learned that we can open a folder (action set) to view the actions inside of it simply by clicking on the small triangle to the left of the folder icon. Clicking on the triangle again will close the folder.
We can do the exact same thing with actions. By default, an action is closed inside the Actions palette, hiding the individual steps that make up the action from view. To twirl open an action and see all of the steps, simply click on the triangle to the left of the action's name. Here I've clicked on the triangle for the Vignette action, and we can now see all of the steps that Photoshop runs through when creating the effect for us:

Click on the triangle to the left of the action name to view the individual steps.

When playing an action, Photoshop runs through each step in the list from top to bottom until it reaches the end. In the case of the Vignette action, we can see that there's 7 steps which Photoshop completes for us, beginning with "Make snapshot", which creates a snapshot in the History palette of how the image appeared just before we ran the action, and ending with "Move current layer".

Viewing The Details Of Each Step In An Action

Notice how some of the steps also have triangles beside their name. These triangles twirl open the specific details for each step so we can see exactly what's going on. Now we're really getting down to the nitty gritty of how the action works. For example, here I've twirled open the second step in the action, "Feather":

Clicking on the triangle beside an individual step reveals the specific details.

Being able to view specific details of a step is invaluable when trying to figure out why an action you're trying to record isn't working the way you expected, or why it works perfectly with one image but not another. With the details of the Feather step now visible, we can see that the first thing Photoshop tries to do with this step is add a feather radius of 5 pixels to the selection we made before running the action.

Showing And Hiding Dialog Boxes When Playing An Action

Remember what happened though? Instead of automatically applying a feather radius of 5 pixels, Photoshop popped open the Feather Selection dialog box for us so we could enter in our own radius value. Why did Photoshop do that? Why didn't it simply set the radius value to 5 pixels on its own and carry on with the rest of the action? The reason is because Photoshop allows us to decide whether or not we want certain dialog boxes to pop up when an action is playing.
"Wait a minute," you're saying, "I thought the whole point of actions was so Photoshop does all the work for me. Why the heck would I want a bunch of dialog boxes popping up on the screen all the time expecting me to enter values for this and that?" Geez, you really are lazy, aren't you? Well, certainly there will be plenty of times when you won't need Photoshop asking you which values to use for different commands and options. But what would happen, for example, if Photoshop hadn't asked us for a new feather radius value when we ran the Vignette action? It would simply add a 5 pixel feather radius to the selection every time we ran the action, regardless of the size of the image. Since different size images would require a different feather radius value, an action that doesn't give us the option to change the radius value wouldn't be very useful to us.
By default, Photoshop does not pop open dialog boxes when we run actions. It simply uses whatever values we used for the various commands and options when we recorded the action. If we want Photoshop to open a dialog box for us when an action plays, we need to tell it to do so, and the way we do that is by clicking on the dialog box toggle icon to the left of the individual step. By default, the toggle icon is hidden and all we see is an empty square. This means that the dialog box will not appear.
If we look closely at the Actions palette though, we can see that the dialog box toggle icon is appearing to the left of the Feather step (it looks like a small gray dialog box):

The dialog box toggle icon is visible to the left of the Feather step.

With the toggle icon visible, Photoshop knows that when it reaches that step, it needs to display the related dialog box and allow us to enter a new value, if needed, before carrying on with the rest of the action. If we decide we'd rather just skip past the dialog box and allow Photoshop to use whatever values were recorded with the action, all we'd need to do is click on the toggle icon to make it disappear.

Showing Or Hiding All Dialog Boxes For An Action

If you want every step in an action to display its dialog box when the action is played (or at least, every step that has a related dialog box, since not every step will have one), you could click the toggle icon for each individual step on or off, but an easier and faster way is to click on the toggle icon beside the name of the action itself. This main toggle icon controls the toggle icons for all of the individual steps at once. If we look for a moment at the toggle icon to the left of our Vignette action's name, we can see that the icon is currently being displayed, but for some reason it appears red rather than gray:

The dialog box toggle icon beside the name of the action currently appears red.

Photoshop occasionally likes to display things in red because it knows that red tends to make people feel uneasy, even angry, and as everyone knows, Photoshop takes great pleasure in watching us suffer.
Okay, that's not why. When an action's main dialog box toggle icon is displaying in red, it means that at least one, but not all, of the individual steps in the action are currently set to display their dialog box when the action is played. Some dialog boxes are turned on, some are not. That's what the red color means. See? No reason to be angry. If you want to instantly turn all the dialog boxes in the action on, just click on the action's main toggle icon. Photoshop will pop up a warning telling you what you already knew, that you're about to toggle every dialog box in the action either on or off:

Photoshop displays a warning that we're about to toggle every dialog box in the action on or off.

Click OK to exit out of the dialog box. And now, if we look again at our Actions palette, we can see that the main toggle icon for the action has changed from red to gray, which now tells us that every dialog box for the action is currently turned on. We can also see all the dialog boxes appearing beside each individual step:

All dialog boxes for the action are now turned on, and the main toggle icon's color has changed from red to gray.

If you want to turn off all dialog boxes for an action at once, click on the main toggle icon once again. Photoshop will pop up the same warning box we saw a moment ago, telling us that we're about to toggle the state of all dialog boxes in the action. Click OK to close out of it, and this time, we can see that all of the toggle icons, including the main one beside the name of the action, have disappeared:

All dialog boxes for the action are now turned off. The toggle icons, including the main toggle icon, have all disappeared.

Okay, we've successfully ran our very first action, and we've seen how to view the individual steps that Photoshop runs through to complete the action. We've also looked at how to toggle dialog boxes on and off when an action is playing so we can make any necessary changes to a command or option. Feel free to try out the remaining default actions on your own. Remember that some of the default actions are meant to be used with type, so you'll need some type in your document before running them. If, after running an action, you want to revert back to your original image, you can either press Ctrl+Alt+Z (Win) / Command+Option+Z (Mac) a few times to undo all the steps in the action, or go up to the File menu at the top of the screen and choose Revert to revert your image back to the state it was in when you last saved it. You can quickly access the Revert command by pressing the F12 key on your keyboard.

Photoshop's Additional Built-In Actions

If the dozen or so actions that make up the Default Actions set in Photoshop (or the Sample Actions set in Photoshop CS2, as we looked at previously) have you hungry for more, you'll be happy to know that there's lots more where that came from. And when I say "where that came from", I mean it quite literally. Photoshop's default actions are just a sample of all the actions that install with Photoshop, which explains why they're called "Sample Actions" in Photoshop CS2. Photoshop ships with several other action sets, and every action we find in the Default Actions set is taken from one of these other sets.
Each of these additional action sets can be found at the bottom of the Actions palette's menu. In Photoshop CS3, click on the menu icon in the top right corner of the Actions palette. In Photoshop CS2 and earlier, click on the small, right-pointing arrow in the top right corner of the Actions palette. The menu for the Actions palette will appear, and if we look down at the very bottom of the menu, we can see the additional action sets, with names like Commands, Frames, Image Effects, Text Effects, and so on:

Additional action sets are found at the bottom of the Actions palette's menu.

Loading An Additional Action Set

To load any of these additional action sets into Photoshop, simply click on the name of the set. As soon as you click on the name, you'll see the action set appear in the Actions palette below the Default Actions set. For example, I'll click on the Image Effects set:

Click on the name of an action set to select it.

When I do, the Image Effects action set appears in my Actions palette directly below the Default Actions set. I'll click on the triangle to the left of the action set's name to twirl it up so we can see all of the image effects actions inside the set:

The Image Effects action set is now loaded into Photoshop.

As you can probably guess by the name of the action set, each of these actions contains the steps necessary to create various image effects when you play them. If you've spent some time with Photoshop's default actions, you may have already noticed that some of the actions in the Image Effects set, like the "Sepia Toning (layer)", "Quadrant Colors", and "Gradient Map" actions, are also included in the Default Actions set. As I mentioned previously, that's because the default actions are just a small sample of all of the actions that Photoshop comes with.

Playing An Action You've Loaded Into The Actions Palette

To play any of the actions you've loaded into Photoshop, simply select the action by clicking on it, then click on the Play icon at the bottom of the Actions palette. Here I have an image that I think would look good with a sepia tone effect:

A photo of an old car opened in Photoshop.

One of the actions included in the Image Effects set (and also in the Default Actions set) is Sepia Toning (layer), which will automatically add a sepia effect to my image for me. As I mentioned previously, the reason the word "layer" is included after the name of the action is simply to let us know that the effect will be applied to whichever layer we currently have selected. If I look in my Layers palette, I can see that I only have one layer at the moment, the Background layer which holds my photo, so there's no need to worry about which layer is selected:

The Layers palette showing the photo on the Background layer.

To play the Sepia Toning action, I'll simply click on it to select it in the Actions palette, then I'll click on the Play icon at the bottom of the palette, just like I did when I ran the Vignette action earlier:

Select the action you want to run, then click on the Play icon at the bottom of the Actions palette.

If you look closely to the left of the Sepia Toning action's name, you'll notice that the dialog box toggle icon box is empty, which tells us that no dialog boxes will appear when we run this action. Photoshop will complete every step on its own without stopping to ask us anything along the way. And sure enough, after clicking the Play icon, Photoshop goes ahead and applies a sepia tone effect to my photo for me:

The photo now has a sepia tone effect applied to it after running the action.

Just as we saw with the Vignette action earlier, the result isn't too bad at all, especially for an action that's included for free with Photoshop! If I look in my Layers palette, I can see what Photoshop has done:

The Layers palette after running the Sepia Toning action.

Before running the action, we had only one layer, the Background layer. Now, with the action completed, we can see that we have three layers. If we look at the layer preview thumbnails, we can see that the layer directly above the Background layer, "Layer 1", contains a copy of the original image, and this copy has been desaturated (all the color has been removed). And at the very top of the layer stack, we find a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer, which is what's giving us our sepia color.
To see exactly what Photoshop has done with the action, let's twirl open the Sepia Toning action in the Actions palette, and we'll twirl open the individual steps as well so we can view all the details:

Viewing the details of the Sepia Toning action in the Actions palette.

Not only does this ability to view specific details of an action help us troubleshoot actions we're recording ourselves, it also allows us to analyze other people's actions so we can learn from them! In the case of our Sepia Toning action, we can see that the action consists of five main steps, beginning with "Make snapshot", which creates a snapshot in the History palette of how the image looked immediately before running the action. Photoshop then makes a new blank layer above the Background layer (step 2), merges the original image on the Background layer onto the new blank layer above it while keeping the Background layer intact (step 3), desaturates the image on the new layer (step 4), and finally, adds a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer, clips it to the layer below so that only the desaturated layer will be affected, selects the Colorize option, and sets the Hue, Saturation and Lightness values to create the sepia tone. All of these steps are performed automatically for us by Photoshop as part of the action!
Let's look at one more action that Photoshop comes with, this time from another of Photoshop's additional action sets. We'll take this next one even further and see how move through the action one step at a time, and even how to edit an action!

Let's look at another of Photoshop's built-in actions, this time from a different action set. I'll load in the Frames action set by selecting it from the bottom of the Actions palette's menu, just as I did with the Image Effects set on the previous page:

Selecting the Frames action set from the Actions palette menu.

This loads the Frames set into the Actions palette for me, directly below the Image Effects set. I'll twirl open the Frames set by clicking on the triangle to the left of the set's name so we can see all of the actions inside of it. As the name of the action set implies, each of these actions will create a frame effect for us:

The Actions palette displaying the individual actions inside the Frames set.

If you look closely, you'll notice that the Vignette action we ran from the Default Actions set is also found here in the Frames set. You'll also find the "Frame Channel - 50 pixel" and "Wood Frame - 50 pixel" actions in both the Frames set and the Default Actions set. Of course, there's lots more frame actions available in the Frames set, and running any of them is as easy as selecting the one you want and clicking the Play icon at the bottom of the palette, just as we've done a couple of times already.
Let's try out one of these frame effects. Here's a photo that I want to apply a frame effect to:

A photo of a grandmother and granddaughter.

We've already seen what the Vignette action does, so this time, let's see what sort of effect the Photo Corners action will give us. I'll click on Photo Corners in the Actions palette to select it, then I'll click on the Play icon at the bottom of the palette:

Selecting and playing the Photo Corners action.

Notice here as well that the dialog box toggle icon to the left of the Photo Corners action's name is empty, telling us that Photoshop will run through this entire action from beginning to end without popping up any dialog boxes asking us for information. And sure enough, after clicking the Play icon and waiting a couple of seconds for Photoshop to complete the steps, my image now has a photo corners effect applied to it:

The image now has a photo corners effect applied to it.

As with many of the effects actions that Photoshop comes with, the end result probably won't win any awards, but if you don't have a lot of time and need something fast, they can certainly be helpful. Plus, if you're a beginner, playing these actions and checking out the details of each step is a great way to learn! In this case, we ran an action named Photo Corners and photo corners is what we got. Considering that we had to do absolutely nothing ourselves to create the effect other than play the action, and that the action is included for free with Photoshop, it's hard to find fault with it.
Having said that, I'm not a big fan of the colors that this action uses. I could probably live with the white photo corners themselves, but the gray background does nothing for me. Wouldn't it be great if we could edit the action and customize it ourselves? Well, guess what? We can! Editing an action is easy! At least, it's easy once you've figured out which steps you need to edit. We've already seen how we can view the specific details of an action by twirling open the individual steps, but an even easier way to see exactly what's going on with an action is to play each step one at a time! We'll see how easy it is to step through an action next!

We've covered a lot of information so far in our look at Photoshop actions. We've learned what an action is and that actions are stored in action sets. We've looked at the Actions palette and the palette menu. We've explored the default actions that Photoshop automatically loads for us, and we've seen how to load the additional action sets that install with Photoshop. We know that Photoshop can run through an entire action from beginning to end completely on its own, or it can pop open dialog boxes which give us the chance to change various command options and settings to better suit the image we're working on. And we've learned how to twirl open an action in the Actions palette so we can view the specific steps involved, right down to the details of each step.
A moment ago, we ran the Photo Corners action, which is found in the Frames action set, on an image and we ended up with a very basic photo corners effect. I wasn't too thrilled with the colors that the action used, though, so I'd like to edit the action and choose different colors. To do that, I'll first need to figure out which steps in the action are responsible for setting the colors it uses.
We've already learned how to view the individual steps, as well as the details of those steps, in the Actions palette, but an even better way of figuring out exactly what's going on with an action is to take the action one step at a time. And when I say "take" it one step at a time, I mean "play" it one step at a time! You simply start at the beginning of the action and play each step individually while keeping an eye on your image and on the Layers palette to see what just happened!
Unfortunately, Adobe didn't include an obvious way of stepping through an action like this. There is no "Play Single Step" button anywhere to be found. To play a single step in an action, hold down your Ctrl (Win) / Command (Mac) key on your keyboard and double-click on the step in the Actions palette. This will play the step you double-clicked on and advance you to the next step in the Actions palette. If you keep an eye on your image and on the Layers palette, you'll be able to see exactly what's happening. Let's work our way through the Photo Corners action one step at a time to see exactly how Photoshop creates the frame effect and to learn which steps we'll need to edit to change the colors it uses. This also gives us a chance to see what sort of things we can record as part of an action, although there's lots more we can do than what we'll find here.
Before I begin, I'm going to revert my image back to its original state by going up to the File menu at the top of the screen and choosing Revert:

Select the Revert command from the File menu to revert an image to its original or previously saved state.

This returns my photo back to the way it looked before running the action:

The photo is now back to its original state.

If I look in my Layers palette, I can see that I'm back to having only one layer, the Background layer, which contains my image:

The Layers palette showing the original image on the Background layer.

Step 1: Make snapshot

Let's begin working our way through the Photo Corners action one step at a time so we can see exactly what Photoshop is doing. With the Photo Corners action twirled open in the Actions palette, I'll hold down my Ctrl (Win) / Command (Mac) key on the keyboard and double-click on the very first step, Make snapshot:

Hold down Ctrl (Win) / Command (Mac) and double-click on the first step in the action to play it.

The "Make snapshot" step takes a snapshot of the current state of the image and places it in the History palette. This way, if we want to revert back to the way the image looked immediately before running the action, we can simply switch over to the History palette and click on the snapshot. After playing this step, switch to your History palette for a moment. You'll see the snapshot, named "Snapshot 1", at the top of the palette:

A snapshot of the current state of the image now appears in the History palette.

Step 2: Convert Mode

Switch back to your Actions palette when you're done. Let's move on to the second step in the action, Convert Mode. I can't really tell just from the name of this step what it's going to do, so I'll twirl it open to view the details:

Viewing the details of the second step in the Photo Corners action.

With the details of the step visible, I can see that all this second step does is converts the image to the RGB color mode. Well, my image is already in the RGB color mode, and yours probably is, too, so this second step isn't really necessary. I'm going to skip it for now, but later, when we go to actually edit the action, we'll learn how to turn individual steps on and off.

Step 3: Duplicate current layer

The third step in the Photo Corners action is Duplicate current layer. I'll select the step, then twirl it open so we can view the details:

The details of the "Duplicate current layer" step.

It looks like this third step in the action is going to create a duplicate of the Background layer (since the Background layer is our only layer at the moment), and it's going to name the new layer "photo corners". Let's see what happens. I'll hold down Ctrl (Win) / Command (Mac) and double-click on the step to play it. If I look in my Layers palette after playing the step, I can see that I now have two layers. The new layer (the one on top) is a duplicate of the Background layer, and Photoshop named it "photo corners", exactly as we expected:

The copy of the Background layer named "photo corners" now appears in the Layers palette.

Step 4: Transform current layer

As we make our way through the individual steps of the Photo Corners action, we come to the fourth step, Transform current layer. I'll twirl open the step in the Actions palette and with the details now visible, it looks like this step is going to use Photoshop's Transform command to scale the image on the "photo corners" layer down to 95% of it's original size:

Viewing the details of the fourth step in the Photo Corners action.

I'll play the step by Ctrl+double-clicking (Win) / Command+double-clicking (Mac) on it, and while nothing appears to have happened in the Layers palette, I can see if I look at my document window that the image on the "photo corners" layer has in fact been made smaller, while the original image below it on the Background layer remains full size:

The image on the "photo corners" layer has been scaled down to 95% its original size.

So far, no sign of the step that controls the colors in the frame effect, but we're getting a good sense of how the action was put together. Let's carry on.

Step 5: Make layer

We're working our way through the Photo Corners action in Photoshop by playing each step individually from beginning to end, looking for the steps that control the colors the action uses so we can edit them, and we're getting a good idea of how actions work. The fifth step in the action is Make layer, and if I twirl it open to view the details, we can see that a new blank layer is going to be created and given the name "new background":

The fifth step should create a new blank layer named "new background".

I'll play the step by once again holding down Ctrl (Win) / Command (Mac) and double-clicking on the step in the Actions palette, and a quick look at the Layers palette shows us that we do in fact now have a new blank layer above the other two, and this new layer has been named "new background":

A new blank layer named "new background" appears at the top of the layer stack.

Step 6: Fill

Moving along through the Photo Corners action, we come to the sixth step, Fill. This one looks interesting. I know that Photoshop's Fill command is used to fill layers or selections with color, and if I twirl open the action to view the details, it looks like this step is going to fill our new layer with gray. I think we've found the first step that controls color in the action!

The sixth step in the action appears to fill the new layer with gray.

Let's play the step by holding down Ctrl (Win) / Command (Mac) and double-clicking on it to see what happens. Sure enough, the "new background" layer becomes filled with gray. Since the "new background" layer is currently above the other two layers in the Layers palette, it blocks the two layers below it from view and our entire document window appears as solid gray:

The "new background" layer is now filled with solid gray.

We now know that this is the step we'll need to edit to change the color used for the background in the Photo Corners frame effect! Let's keep going.

Step 7: Move current layer

The seventh step in our action is Move current layer. "Current layer" refers to the currently selected layer, and since our currently selected layer is the "new background" layer that was filled with gray a moment ago, the name of this step makes it fairly obvious that the "new background" layer is about to be moved to a new location in the Layers palette. If we twirl open the step to view the details, we can see that it will be moved into the "layer 1" position, which will place it directly above the Background layer:

The seventh step in the action looks like it will move the "new background" layer directly above the Background layer in the Layers palette.

I'll play the step by Ctrl+double-clicking (Win) / Command+double-clicking (Mac) on it, and we can see now in the Layers palette that the "new background" layer has swapped positions with the "photo corners" layer, making the "photo corners" layer now the top-most layer in the layer stack:

The "new background" and "photo corners" layers have now swapped positions in the Layers palette.

Since the "photo corners" layer is now at the top of the layer stack, the image on the layer is now visible in front of the gray background in the document window:

The image on the "photo corners" layer is now visible in front of the gray background.

Step 8: Select layer "photo corners"

The Photo Corners frame effect is beginning to take shape. Step 8 in the action is a simple one, Select layer "photo corners". This step is so straightforward, in fact, that there are no extra details for us to view which is why the step doesn't have a twirly triangle beside its name. This step should simply select the "photo corners" layer in the Layers palette:

Step 8 in the Photo Corners action is a simple one.

I'll hold down Ctrl (Win) / Command (Mac) and double-click on it to play it, and we see in the Layers palette that the "photo corners" layer is now selected:

The "photo corners" layer is now selected after playing the step.

Step 9: Make layer

The ninth step in the action is Make layer. Since the fifth step in our Photo Corners action was also named "Make layer", we know from what we saw in Step 5 that this step is going to create a new blank layer for us. By default, new layers are added directly above the currently selected layer, and since the "photo corners" layer was selected in the previous step, this new layer will be placed directly above it, which will position it at the very top of the layer stack. If we twirl open the step to view the details, we can see that the new layer will be named "4 corners":

The ninth step in the action should create a new blank layer named "4 corners" directly above the "photo corners" layer.

I'll Ctrl+double-click (Win) / Command+double-click (Mac) on the step to play it, and the Layers palette now shows us a new blank layer named "4 corners" directly above the "photo corners" layer:

A new blank layer named "4 corners" appears above the "photo corners" layer in the Layers palette.

We'll continue making our way through the Photo Corners action next, and when we're done, we'll see how to go about editing the action!

Steps 10 - 13: Creating The Selections For The Photo Corners

As we make our way through the Photo Corners action in the Actions palette, we come to step 10, Set Selection. This step, along with the three Add To Selection steps that follow it, creates a triangular selection in one of the four corners of the photo. To save us a little time, and as an opportunity to show you a little trick for playing several actions at once, I'm going to select the first step, "Set Selection", then I'll hold down my Shift key and click on the third "Add To Selection" step (step 13), which will select all four steps at once in the Actions palette:

To select multiple steps in a row, click on the top one, then Shift-click on the bottom one.

To tell Photoshop to play all four steps one after the other once you have them selected, simply click on the Play icon at the bottom of the Actions palette:

Click the Play icon to have Photoshop play all four steps.

If we look at the image in the document window now, we can see a triangular-shaped selection in each of the four corners of the photo:

A triangular selection now appears in each corner of the photo.

The only minor downside to playing several steps at once like this is that Photoshop doesn't automatically advance you to the next step in the action when it's done, so you'll need to click on the next step yourself to select it. Not a huge deal, but worth mentioning anyway.

Step 14: Reset Swatches

Arriving at step 14, Reset Swatches, we find another step that seems to have something to do with color in the action. This step, which again is so straightforward that no additional details are needed in the Actions palette, resets the Foreground and Background colors to their defaults, with black becoming the foreground color and white as the background color:

The "Reset Swatches" step will reset the Foreground and Background colors to their defaults.

I'll hold down Ctrl (Win) / Command (Mac) and double-click on the step to play it, and we can see if we look at the Foreground and Background color swatches in the Tools palette that the foreground color (the left swatch) is now set to black while the background color (the right swatch) is set to white:

The Foreground and Background color swatches in the Tools palette.

Your foreground and background colors may have already been set to the default colors before playing this step. In fact, we may not even need this step, so it may end up being one we can delete, or at least turn off, when we go to edit the action later.

Step 15: Fill

Step 15 in the Photo Corners action brings us to another step named Fill. If you recall, the sixth step in the action was also a Fill step, and it filled the "new background" layer with gray. Let's twirl open this step to see the details:

Viewing the details of step 16 in the Photo Corners action.

It looks like this time, we'll be filling those four triangular selections we just made with our current background color, which explains why we reset the foreground and background colors in the previous step. Since our background color is now set to white, the four selections will be filled with white. I'll play the step (I think we all know how to play the step at this point so I won't bother explaining how), and if we look at the image in the document window, we can see that the four selections are now filled with white, giving us the photo corners:

The selections in the four corners of the image are now filled with white.

Okay! We've found the steps that control the colors used in the action! We now know which steps to edit. Two of the steps are named "Fill", with the first one controlling the color of the background and the second setting the color for the photo corners themselves. We also found a couple of steps that are probably not needed, with one converting our image to the RGB color mode and the other resetting our foreground and background colors. Let's quickly finish making our way through this action so we can see a few more examples of the kinds of things you can record with an action, and then we'll go about editing our own custom version!

Step 16: Set Selection

We're almost at the end of our step-by-step journey through the Photo Corners action in Photoshop. Set 16 is Set Selection, and if we twirl it open to view the details, we see that it tells Photoshop to set the selection to "none":

To select multiple steps in a row, click on the top one, then Shift-click on the bottom one.

What the heck does that mean, setting a selection to none? Well, as you may have noticed, the language Photoshop uses to describe the details of steps in the Actions palette isn't always so easy to follow. Setting a selection to "none" is Photoshop's way of telling us that it's going to deselect the selection. You'll find yourself getting better and better at translating Photoshop-speak as you gain more experience with using actions. I'll play the step, and when I do, the four selection outlines disappear in the document window:

The four selection outlines have now disappeared.

Step 17: Select layer "photo corners"

Moving along, we come to step 17, Select layer "photo corners", which is another one of those straightforward steps that doesn't require any additional details. It will simply select the "photo corners" layer in the Layers palette:

Step 17 will make the "photo corners" layer active.

I'll play the step, and we can see in the Layers palette that the "photo corners" layer is now highlighted in blue, telling us that it's selected:

The "photo corners" layer is now selected in the Layers palette.

Step 18: Set Layer Styles of current layer

With only a few steps remaining in the action, we come to step 18, Set Layer Styles of current layer. As you can probably tell from the name of the step, this one adds a layer style, or styles, to the currently selected layer. Layer styles can easily be recorded as part of actions. In this case, if we twirl open the step to view the details, we can see that we're about to add a drop shadow to the image on the "photo corners" layer. The settings that will be used with the drop shadow are also included for us, with a Distance of 2 pixels and a Size of 4 pixels:

Layer Styles are one of the many things that can be recorded as part of an action.

After playing the step, we can see a slight drop shadow effect added to the image on the "photo corners" layer, although it's a bit hard to see in the screenshot since it's such a subtle effect:

A subtle drop shadow has been added to the image on the "photo corners" layer.

Step 19: Select layer "4 corners"

Only three more steps to go. Step 19 is Select layer "4 corners", another simple step with no additional details needed:

Step 19 will select the "4 corners" layer in the Layers palette.

This step will select the "4 corners" layer in the Layers palette, and when I play it, we can see that the "4 corners" layer is now selected:

The Layers palette showing the "4 corners" layer now selected.

Step 20: Set Layer Styles of current layer

With just two steps left to go, the second last step in the Photo Corners action looks very similar to step 18 which we looked at a moment ago. It's also named Set Layer Styles of current layer, which again tells us that our currently selected layer (the "4 corners" layer) is about to have one or more layer styles applied to it. This time, it will be a Bevel and Emboss style, with the Highlight Opacity option set to 100%, Style set to inner bevel, and Depth set to 2 pixels:

A Bevel and Emboss layer style will be applied to the "4 corners" layer.

I'll play the action, and if we look at the image in the document window, we can see that the four white photo corners, which are sitting on the "4 corners" layer, now have a subtle inner bevel effect applied to them, giving the effect a bit of depth:

The four photo corners now have an inner bevel effect applied to them.

Step 21: Merge Layers

We've arrived at the final step in the action. Step 21 is Merge Layers, another step which needs no further details. It will simply merge the "4 corners" layer, which is our currently selected layer, with the "photo corners" layer directly below it:

The final step in the Photo Corners action is "Merge Layers".

I'll play the step to complete the action, and we can see that the "4 corners" layer has disappeared from the Layers palette now that it's been merged with the "photo corners" layer, which is now the top-most layer in the layer stack:

The "4 corners" layer has now been merged with the "photo corners" layer in the Layers palette.

And there we have it! We've successfully stepped through and analyzed an entire action from beginning to end! If you find yourself using someone else's actions that you've either purchased, borrowed or downloaded for free from a website, stepping through the action like this is a great way to learn how other people are doing things in Photoshop! It's also a handy way of analyzing your own actions when trying to figure out why they don't seem to be working the way you expected (which does happen).
Okay, it's time to edit this action and create our own customized version of it. We'll do that next!

Now that we've finished stepping through the Photo Corners action and we know which steps we want to change, we're ready to edit the action! There's a couple of steps we'll need to edit in order to change the colors the action uses, and there's also a couple of steps we can probably get rid of altogether, or at least disable.
Whenever you're editing an action, it's always best to make a copy of the action first and edit the copy, rather than editing the original. This way, you'll always have the original if you need it. Also, since the action we want to edit is found in one of the action sets that installed with Photoshop (in this case, the Frames action set), it's a good idea for us to create a new action set and then place the copy of our action inside the new set, rather than making changes to any of Photoshop's default settings.

Creating A New Action Set

The first thing we need to do, then, is create a new action set. As we've already learned, an action set is really just a folder of sorts that actions are stored in. It's important to note that all actions must be placed inside action sets. If you create a new action, or make a copy of an existing action, it must be placed inside an action set. You can have a single action in a set or hundreds of actions, it makes no difference. All actions must be placed in an action set. I know, it's a rule and no one likes rules, but there's just no getting around this one.
The easiest way to create a new action set is to click on the New Action Set icon at the bottom of the Actions palette (it's the icon that looks like a folder):

Click on the New Action Set icon to create a new action set.

Photoshop will pop up the New Set dialog box where you can enter a name for your new action set. I'll name my action set "My Actions". Of course, you can name your set whatever you like:

Enter a name for your new action set in the New Set dialog box.

Click OK once you've entered a name for your set to exit out of the dialog box. If I look at my Actions palette now, I can see my new action set, "My Actions", listed below the other action sets:

The new action set appears in the Actions palette.

At the moment, we have a new action set with absolutely nothing in it. Let's make a copy of the Photo Corners action, which is inside the Frames set, and place it into our new set.

Moving Action Sets Inside The Actions Palette

To place a copy of the Photo Corners action inside my new "My Actions" set, I'm simply going to drag the action from the Frames set into the "My Actions" set while holding down my Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) key, which will create a copy of the action set as I drag. To make it easier to drag the action from one set into the other, I'm first going to move the "My Actions" set above the Frames set. To move action sets around and reposition them inside the Actions palette, simply click on an action set, then keep your mouse button held down and drag the set to its new position. Here, I'm dragging the "My Actions" set to its new location directly between the Image Effects and Frames sets. Notice the black horizontal line that appears between them indicating where the action set will be placed:

Click and drag action sets up or down in the Actions palette to reposition them.

Release your mouse button to drop the set into its new location:

The "My Actions" set is now sitting between the Image Effects and Frames sets.

Copying And Dragging An Action From One Set To Another

With my "My Actions" set now moved into place, I'll twirl open the Frames set and click on the Photo Corners action to select it. I'm going to drag this action from the Frames set into the "My Actions" set, but I don't want to move the original action. I want to create a copy of the original and move the copy into the "My Actions" set while leaving the original alone. To move the action and create a copy of it at the same time, I'll hold down my Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) key and drag the Photo Corners action into the "My Actions" set. Once again, a black horizontal line appears indicating where the action will be placed:

Holding down "Alt" (Win) / "Option" (Mac) and dragging the Photo Corners action into the "My Actions" set.

I'll release my mouse button, and I now have a copy of the action, which Photoshop has named "Photo Corners copy", in the "My Actions" set:

A copy of the action, named "Photo Corners copy", has been placed inside the "My Actions" set.

Renaming An Action

"Photo Corners copy" doesn't seem like a very interesting name to me, and certainly not very descriptive. Since I'm hoping to improve on this action by editing it, I think I'll rename it to something like "Improved Photo Corners". To rename an action, simply double-click directly on its name in the Actions palette and type in a new name. Press Enter (Win) / Return (Mac) when you're done:

Double-click directly on the name of an action and enter a new name to rename it.

I now have an exact copy of the original Photo Corners action, which I've renamed "Improved Photo Corners", sitting in the new "My Actions" set that I created. We can now make any changes we want to this action without affecting either the original action or the Frames action set.

Deleting A Step In An Action

Let's begin editing our "Improved Photo Corners" action. The first thing I'm going to do is delete the very first step, "Make snapshot". If you recall, this step takes a snapshot of the state of the image just before the action is played so that we can easily undo the action by simply clicking on the snapshot in the History palette. I'll click on this step to select it:

Selecting the "Make snapshot" step.

Since I'll most likely be running this action on an image immediately after opening it in Photoshop, I don't think there's really any need for a snapshot since I could just as easily select the Revert option from the File menu at the top of the screen to revert the image back to the way it appeared when I opened it. I'll just go ahead then and delete this step. To delete a step in an action, all you need to do is click on it and drag it down on to the Trash Bin icon at the bottom of the Actions palette:

To delete a step, click on it and drag it down on to the Trash Bin at the bottom of the Actions palette.

The "Make snapshot" step has now been deleted:

The step has been deleted.

I'm also going to delete the "Reset Swatches" step from the action, since we won't be needing that one either. Another way to delete a step is to click on it in the Actions palette to select then, then hold down your Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) key and simply click on the Trash Bin icon at the bottom of the palette:

Click on a step to select it, then hold down "Alt" (Win) / "Option" (Mac) and click on the Trash Bin to delete it.

If you click on the Trash Bin without holding down Alt/Option, Photoshop pops up a dialog box first asking if you want to delete the step. Holding down Alt/Option avoids the dialog box.

Turning Steps On And Off

Sometimes, rather than deleting a step entirely, you'll simply want Photoshop to ignore it. This is usually a better alternative than deleting a step unless you know for certain that the step is not and will not ever be needed. The Actions palette gives us a way to turn individual steps off without deleting them by clicking on the small checkmark to the left of a step. With the checkmark visible, the step will be played as part of the action. When you click on a checkmark, it disappears leaving an empty box in its place and the step will be ignored.
If I look at my action in the Actions palette, I can see that the first step is now "Convert Mode", which, if you remember from our step-by-step journey through the Photo Corners action, converts the image into the RGB color mode. The reason this step is included is because not all of Photoshop's commands, filters and other options are available to us when working on an image in a different color mode like CMYK or Lab. Also, colors can appear differently when working in these other modes, especially CMYK. However, since the chances are very high that any image we're working on in Photoshop will already be in the RGB color mode, this step can usually be skipped. Of course, there's always the chance that you'll be working on an image in a different color mode, so rather than deleting the step completely, let's just turn it off.
To turn off the "Convert Mode" step and tell Photoshop to skip it until I decide to turn it back on again, I'll simply click on the checkmark to the left of the step. The checkmark will disappear, leaving an empty square in its place:

Turn individual steps on and off by clicking on the checkmark to the left of a step. The step is turned off when the checkmark is not visible.

The next time I run this action, Photoshop will ignore the "Convert Mode" step and carry on with the rest of the action. To turn a step back on, just click inside the empty square to make the checkmark visible once again.

Turn All Steps On Or Off At Once

If you want to turn every step in an action on or off at once, simply click on the checkmark to the left of the action's name in the Actions palette. When the checkmark is red, as it is at the moment, it means that some of the steps in the action are currently turned on while others are turned off. In our case, the "Convert Mode" step is turned off while all other steps are turned on. When the checkmark is gray, it means that all of the steps are currently turned on. And when the checkmark is not visible, it means that all of the steps in the action are currently turned off:

The main checkmark to the left of the action's name is red, which means that some of the steps are turned on while others are turned off.

Changing An Existing Step In An Action

We've seen how to delete a step from an action, as well as how to temporarily turn steps on or off. Now let's look at how to change a step. Before we do, it's important to note that unfortunately, not all steps in an action can be easily changed. If a step involves setting options in a dialog box, which is what we'll be looking at here, then yes, you can make changes to the step by changing the options in the dialog box. If not, you'll need to delete the step, then re-record it. We'll see how to add steps to an action once we've looked at how to make changes to a step that uses a dialog box.
There's two steps in this action that I want to change. Both are named "Fill", and both control the colors used in the frame effect. If you recall from when we played through the action one step at a time, the first Fill step controls the color used for the background. Let's look at this step again. I'll twirl it open so we can view the details:

The details of the first Fill step in the action which controls the background color.

At the moment, this step will fill the "new background" layer with gray, using Photoshop's Fill command. I wasn't too happy with the gray that it used, so I want to choose a different color. Now, I have a couple of choices here. I can specify an exact color to use every time I run the action, or I can tell Photoshop to bring up the Fill command's dialog box when it plays the action so I can choose a different color each time. Let's try choosing a specific color first.
To edit a step in an action (again, this only works for steps that involve dialog boxes), simply double-click on the step in the Actions palette. I'll double-click directly on the Fill step, and as soon as I do, Photoshop pops up the Fill dialog box and we can see that it's currently set to fill the layer with 50% gray, which is the shade of gray midway between black and white:

Double-click on a step to bring up its dialog box.

I think I want to use white for my background color with this frame effect, so I'll select White from the drop-down box instead:

Changing the "Use" option to "White" in the Fill dialog box.

I'll click OK in the dialog box to accept the change and exit out of it, but as soon as I do, Photoshop actually plays the step and fills my document window with white:

Photoshop plays the step after making changes.

To undo the step that Photoshop has played, all I need to do is go up to the Edit menu at the top of the screen and choose Undo (in this case, it will say Undo Fill), or I can use the keyboard shortcut, Ctrl+Z (Win) / Command+Z (Mac). Either way takes me back to the way the image looked before the step was played.
And now, if I look at the details of the step in the Actions palette, I can see that the layer will no longer be filled with gray. Instead, it will be filled with white:

The details of the step have now changed in the Actions palette.

I'm going to do the same thing with the second Fill step, which controls the color used for the actual photo corners. I'll scroll down to it in the Actions palette, then twirl it open so we can see the details:

The second Fill step controls the color of the four photo corners.

As we see by looking at the details of the step, it's currently set to fill the four photo corners with the background color. We've already deleted the "Reset Swatches" step which would have reset the background color to white, so let's set a specific color to use. I'll double-click on the step in the Actions palette to edit it, and the Fill dialog box pops up once again, this time set to use the current background color:

The Fill command is currently set to fill the four photo corners with the background color.

This time, I think I'll choose black as the color for my photo corners, so I'll select Black from the list:

Selecting black as the color to use for the photo corners.

I'll click OK to accept the change and exit out of the dialog box, and once again, Photoshop plays the step, filling my document window with black:

The document window now appears filled with black.

I'll undo the step that Photoshop played using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Z (Win) / Command+Z (Mac), and now if I look at the details of the step in the Actions palette, I can see that the photo corners will now be filled with black instead of the background color:

The details of the step now show that black will be used instead of the background color.

Let's play the action now and see what it looks like with our new colors! I'll use a different photo this time just to keep things interesting. To play the action, I'll click on it in the Actions palette to select it and then click on the Play icon at the bottom of the palette:

Selecting and playing the newly edited action.

Here's the image after running the Improved Photo Corners frame effect action. Notice how the background is now white and the photo corners are black thanks to the changes we made:

The photo after running the new Improved Photo Corners frame effect action.

I would say that's a definite improvement over the colors used by the original Photo Corners action. But what if I don't always want white as my background color and black as the color of the photo corners? Do I have to make a new copy of the action and edit it each time I want different colors? Of course not! We'll just tell Photoshop to pop open the Fill dialog boxes for us so we can choose a new color each time the action plays!

Toggling Dialog Boxes On And Off In An Action

As we've already learned from back when we were looking at Photoshop's Default Actions set, the Actions palette gives us the ability to have dialog boxes pop open for us as an action plays. This gives us a chance to customize the action on the fly each time we run it. In our case here, even though we've already seen how to edit the colors in the action and select new ones, it would be great if we could choose different colors for our Improved Photo Corners action each time we ran it, and we can certainly do that. All we need to do is toggle the dialog boxes on for our two Fill steps.
To tell Photoshop to pop open the dialog box when it reaches a certain step, simply click on the dialog box toggle icon to the left of the step. In my case, I want the Fill dialog box to appear when the action plays so I can choose a color for the background, so I'll click on the dialog box toggle icon to the left of the first Fill step:

Toggling the dialog box on for the first Fill step in the action.

I'll scroll down to the second Fill step and do the same thing:

Toggling the dialog box on for the second Fill step in the action.

Now watch what happens when I play the action. First, I'll revert my photo back to its original state by going up to the File menu and choosing Revert. Now I'll select the action in the Actions palette and click on the Play icon. Photoshop begins running through the steps in the action as usual until it reaches the first Fill step. Here, instead of automatically filling the background layer with white, it pops open the Fill dialog box for me, allowing me to either accept white as the color to use or choose a different color:

The Fill dialog box appears when Photoshop reaches the first Fill step.

One of my favorite ways to customize effects is to sample colors directly from the image I'm working on, and I think I'll do that here. I'll sample a color from the photo to use as the background color for the frame effect. To do that, I'll choose Color from the drop-down list in the Fill dialog box:

Selecting "Color" from the drop-down list.

This will bring up Photoshop's Color Picker. Rather than choosing a color from the Color Picker though, I'm going to move my mouse cursor over the image, which turns the cursor into the Eyedropper, and I'll click on the image to sample a light bluish-gray color from the bride's veil:

Sampling a color directly from the image to use as the background color for the frame effect.

I'll click OK to exit out of the Color Picker, then I'll click OK to exit out of the Fill dialog box. Photoshop fills the "new background" layer with the color I've sampled from the image and then continues on its way through the steps in the action until it reaches the second Fill step. Here, it pauses and pops open the Fill dialog box once again, allowing me to either accept black as the color to use for the photo corners or choose a different color:

The Fill dialog box opens once again when Photoshop reaches the second Fill step in the action.

I'm going to sample another color directly from the image to use for the photo corners, so I'll select Color from the drop-down list in the Fill dialog box. Once again, this brings up Photoshop's Color Picker, but I'm not going to use it. Instead, I'll move my mouse cursor over the image and sample a darker gray color, also from the bride's veil:

Sampling a second color from the image, this time for the photo corners.

I'll click OK to exit out of the Color Picker, then I'll click OK to exit out of the Fill dialog box. Photoshop fills the four photo corners with the dark gray I sampled from the image, then continues on through the remainder of the steps in the action until it reaches the end. Here is my new "Improved Photo Corners" result using the colors sampled directly from the photo:

The same Improved Photo Corners frame effect, this time with colors sampled from the image.

I think that looks pretty good. And now that the action will allow me to choose new colors every time I run it, I can easily customize this frame effect action for any photo I use it with!
There's only one more thing we need to look at before moving on to recording our own actions, and that's how to add a step to an action. We'll do that next!

Adding A New Step To An Action

As I mentioned on the previous page, Photoshop allows us to make changes to an existing step in an action only when the step involves using a dialog box to set various options. By double-clicking directly on the step, we tell Photoshop to pop the dialog box open for us so we can make changes, and then we simply close the dialog box when we're done. If the step we need to change does not use a dialog box, the only way we can edit it is by deleting the step and then re-recording it. We've already looked at how to delete a step from an action, which is easily done by dragging it down on to the Trash Bin at the bottom of the Actions palette. Here, we'll look at how to add a step to an action.
Remember when we stepped through the original Photo Corners action? The very first step in the action was "Make snapshot", which took a snapshot of the state of the image just before the action was played and saved it in the History palette. This way, we could quickly undo all the steps in the action if needed by switching over to the History palette and clicking on the snapshot. After we dragged a copy of the action, which we renamed "Improved Photo Corners", into our new "My Actions" set so we could edit it, the first thing we did was delete that "Make snapshot" step. My reasoning for deleting the step at the time was that I would most likely be running the action on a newly opened image in Photoshop, and since we can easily revert an image back to the way it looked when we opened it (or at least to the way it looked when we last saved it) by going up to the File menu and choosing Revert, I didn't think the "Make snapshot" step was necessary, so I deleted it.
Well, as is often the case, it's not until you've tossed something away that you realize how much it really meant to you. After a bit more thought, I realize now that deleting that step was a mistake. What if I wanted to run the "Improved Photo Corners" action on an image that I had already done a considerable amount of photo retouching work on? Sure, I could save the image first before running the action, but what if I forgot to save it first? If I tried to undo the action by selecting Revert from the File menu, not only would I be undoing all the steps in the action, I'd also be undoing everything else I had done to the image! Suddenly, having that "Make snapshot" step there doesn't sound like such a bad idea. But what to do? I've already deleted it! Do I have to re-record the entire action again, or edit another copy of the original just to get that one step back? Thankfully, no. All I need to do is re-record that one step.
To add a step to an action, the first thing we need to do is select the step that comes just before the spot where we need to insert the step. For example, if the step you're adding needs to be the third step in the action, click on the second step in the action to select it before you begin recording. This way, when you record the new step, Photoshop will automatically place it immediately after the step you had selected. Keep in mind that you'll most likely need to play all the steps in the action up to that point in order to add the new step, otherwise Photoshop may not understand what you're trying to do and will throw you an error message, which makes sense. After all, if you tried telling someone to "turn left at the next intersection" while the two of you are still standing beside the car deciding where to go for lunch, they probably won't have any idea what you're talking about and may start wondering if going anywhere at all with you is such a good idea.
Remember, to play steps in an action one at a time, hold down your Ctrl (Win) / Command (Mac) key and double-click on each step. You'll probably need to do this from the beginning of the action until you reach the point where you want to insert your new step.
In my case, I have a bit of a problem. I want to insert a new step at the very beginning of the action, which means, obviously, that there are no steps that come before it for me to select, and that means there's no way for me to have Photoshop automatically place my new step at the beginning of the action. No worries though, since we can easily rearrange the order of the steps, as we'll see in a moment. For now, I'll simply select the step that's currently the first step, "Convert Mode":

Selecting the first step in the action.

To record a new step, simply click on the Record icon at the bottom of the Actions palette:

Click the Record icon to begin recording your new step.

You'll see the little "button" turn red, letting you know that you're now in Record mode:

The record button turns red when in Record mode.

Now, remember what we said at the very beginning. There's no reason to panic just because the little record button is red. Yes, we're technically in Record mode, but we can take as much time as we want recording our step because actions are not recorded in real time. All Photoshop records are the steps themselves. I want to have the action take a snapshot of my image before any further steps are run, so with Photoshop recording what I'm doing, I'm going to switch over to my History palette, which by default is sitting right next to the Actions palette, and I'll click on the New Snapshot icon at the bottom of the palette (it's the icon that looks like a camera):

Clicking on the "New Snapshot" icon at the bottom of the History palette.

This adds a snapshot of the current state of my image to the top of the History palette:

The History palette showing the new snapshot.

I'll switch back over to my Actions palette now, and we can see that a new step named "Make snapshot" has been added directly below the "Convert Mode" step, which is the step I selected before clicking the Record icon:

A new "Make snapshot" step now appears below the "Convert Mode" step.

I've finished recording my step, so I can now stop recording. To do that, I'll click on the Stop icon to the left of the Record icon:

Click on the Stop icon to finish recording the step.

And there we go! I've successfully added a new "Make snapshot" step to my "Improved Photo Corners" action. The only problem is that I want this new step to be the first step in the action, and at the moment, it's the second step. Let's fix that.

Changing The Order Of Steps In An Action

To change the order of steps in an action, simply click on a step to select it, then drag into into place. I want to move my "Make snapshot" step above the "Convert Mode" step, so I'll click on it to select it in the Actions palette, then I'll drag it up above the "Convert Mode" step. Notice the black horizontal line that appears where I'm about to drop the step:

Simply click and drag steps above or below each other in the Actions palette if you need to change their order.

I'll release my mouse button to drop the step into its new position, and we can see that it now appears as the very first step in the action, right where I wanted it:

The "Make snapshot" step has been successfully moved into place.

And there we have it! We've now covered just about everything we need to know when it comes to using actions in Photoshop! At this point, recording our own actions from scratch should be fairly straightforward since there's really nothing to it that we haven't already seen. With that in mind, let's record our very own action!

If you've been following along from the very beginning of our look at Photoshop actions, give yourself a pat on the back because we've covered a lot of information! If you skipped everything and jumped right to this page, well, that's okay, too, but you've missed a lot. We looked at what actions are, we explored the Actions palette, we learned the difference between an action and an action set, we looked at the Default Actions set that Photoshop loads automatically for us as well as the additional sets that install with Photoshop, we learned how to see exactly what's going on inside an action by playing through it one step at a time, and we learned how to edit an action! And let's not forget all the little extras we've covered, like how to view the details of an action, including the specific details of each step, how to show and hide dialog boxes when playing an action, how to turn individual steps on an off, and even where to find Photoshop's "classic" default actions if you're using Photoshop CS2! At this point, we've covered pretty much everything we need to know about actions, which means we're ready to record our very own actions in Photoshop!
In this section, we'll look at how to record a simple "Soft Glow" effect as an action. Once we're done recording it, you'll be able to instantly apply the effect to any image you want! Here's the image I'll be using:

The photo that will be used while recording the action.

Let's get started!

Step 1: Create A New Action Set If Needed

As I mentioned previously, all actions must be placed inside an action set. You can have hundreds of actions in a set or a single action, it makes no difference. All Photoshop cares about is that you place all of your actions inside action sets. Back when we looked at how to edit an action in Photoshop, we learned that to create a new action set, all we need to do is click on the New Action Set icon at the bottom of the Actions palette. It's the icon that looks like a small folder, since action sets are really just folders that we store actions in:

Create a new action set by clicking on the New Action Set icon at the bottom of the Actions palette.

This brings up the New Set dialog box where you can enter a name for your new action set. I've already created a new action set, which I named "My Actions". If you've already worked through the "Editing An Action" section of these tutorials, you'll most likely have already created a new action set as well, in which case there's no need to create a new one here. If you haven't yet created your own action set, go ahead and create one now. We can see in the screenshot that I've entered the name "My Actions" for my set, but of course you can name your set whatever you like:

The "New Set" dialog box allows you to enter a name for your new action set.

Click OK when you're done to exit out of the dialog box, and if you look in your Actions palette, you'll see your new set appear below any other action sets you currently have loaded into Photoshop. Since I'm using the same set that I created previously, we can see that I also have the "Improved Photo Corners" action, which we edited earlier, already available inside the set. If you just created a new set, your set will appear empty for the moment:

The new action set appears inside the Actions palette.

Keep in mind that you don't have to create a new action set every time you want to create a new action. As long as you already have an action set to place your new action in, you can place as many actions inside the set as you like. It's a good idea, though, not to place any of your own actions inside any of the sets that are installed with Photoshop, like the Default Actions set, the Image Effects set, the Frames set, and so on. Keep the actions you create yourself inside your own action set or sets.

Step 2: Create A New Action

Now that we an action set to place our new action in, let's create our action! To create a new action, click on the New Action icon at the bottom of the Actions palette:

Click on the "New Action" icon to create a new action.

This brings up the New Action dialog box. Here, we can enter a name for our new action, as well as choose the action set to place the action in. Since we'll be recording the steps needed to create a simple soft glow effect, I'm going to name my action "Soft Glow". Directly below the input box where you entered the name of your action, you'll find the Set option. This is where we select which action set to place the action in. If your new action set is not already selected, select it from the list. Here, we can see that I'll be placing my "Soft Glow" action inside the "My Actions" set:

Enter a name for your new action and select the action set to place your action in.

You'll notice a couple of other options at the bottom of the New Acton dialog box. The Function Key option allows you to assign a keyboard shortcut to your new action if you wish, using any of the Function Keys, along with the Shift key and / or the Ctrl (Win) / Command (Mac) key. Personally, I wouldn't bother with this since it's already very easy to play an action simply by clicking on the Play icon in the Actions palette. You'll also find a Color option here, allowing you to assign a color to your action. This is only relevant if you're viewing your actions in Button Mode, which there's no need to get into here. You can safely ignore the Color option, and I would ignore the Function Key option as well, but that's just me.

Step 3: Click The "Record" Button

When you're done, click on the Record button in the top right corner of the dialog box:

Click on the "Record" button to begin recording your new action.

As soon as you click on the Record button, you'll see your new action appear in your action set inside the Actions palette. You'll also see that the Record icon at the bottom of the palette has turned red, letting you know that you're now in record mode:

The action now appears in the Actions palette, and the Record icon turns red.

Remember, there's no reason to panic. Yes, we're now in record mode, but this isn't like recording a movie. Actions are not recorded in real time. All Photoshop is going to record are the actual steps we perform, not how long it takes us to complete them.
Okay, let's begin recording the steps for our action!

Step 4: Make Snapshot

For the first step in my "Soft Glow" effect action, I'm going to tell Photoshop to take a snapshot of how the image looks just before the effect is applied. You don't necessarily have to include this as the first step in an action, but since it gives us an easy way to undo the effect if we need to, it doesn't hurt to include it. So, with Photoshop recording what I'm doing, I'm going to switch over to my History palette for a moment, which by default is sitting next to the Actions palette, and I'll click on the New Snapshot icon at the bottom of the palette:

Taking a snapshot of the image as the first step in the "Soft Glow" action.

This adds a new snapshot to the top of the History palette:

The snapshot appears at the top of the History palette.

By adding this snapshot of how the image appears before the effect is applied, if I need to undo the effect after running the action on an image, I can simply switch over to the History palette and click on the snapshot.
I'll switch back over to my Actions palette now, and we can can see that the first step, Make snapshot , appears in the "Soft Glow" action. Our first step has successfully been recorded:

The first step now appears in the action.

Step 5: Duplicate The Background Layer

Now that we've given ourselves a way to quickly undo the effect if we need to, we can begin creating it! The first thing we need to do is duplicate the Background layer. The Background layer is the layer that contains our original image, and currently, it's the only layer we have. To duplicate it, go up to the Layer menu at the top of the screen, choose New, and then choose Layer via Copy, or for a quicker way, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+J (Win) / Command +J (Mac).
Either way tells Photoshop to create a duplicate of the Background layer for us (or at least, a duplicate of whatever layer we currently have selected, which in this case happens to be the Background layer). If we look in the Layers palette, we can see that we now have two layers. The original Background layer is on the bottom, and a copy of the Background layer, with the descriptive name "Layer 1", is sitting above it:

The duplicate of the Background layer, "Layer 1", now appears in the Layers palette.

If we look in the Actions palette now, we can see that a second step, Layer Via Copy, has been added to our "Soft Glow" action:

The second step, "Layer Via Copy", appears in the action.

Step 6: Rename The New Layer

Before we continue, let's rename this layer. I'm not a big fan of generic layer names like "Layer 1", and giving layers more meaningful names is always a good idea. To rename the layer, double-click directly on the layer's name, type in a new name, and then press Enter (Win) / Return (Mac) to accept it. In a moment, we're going to be applying Photoshop's Gaussian Blur filter to this layer, so let's name this layer "gaussian blur":

Double-click directly on the name "Layer 1" and rename the layer "gaussian blur".

Checking our Actions palette, we can see that a third step, Set current layer, has been added to our action. The name of the step doesn't really tell us much, other than it sets the currently selected layer to something, but if we twirl open the step by clicking on the triangle to the left of its name, we can see that this step will rename the currently selected layer to "gaussian blur", which is exactly what we want:

The third step, "Set current layer", now appears in the action.

Step 7: Change The Blend Mode Of The New Layer To "Overlay"

So far, even though we've recorded three steps already in our action, the image in the document window doesn't look any different from when we started, but that's about to change. We're going to change the blend mode of the new layer. With the "gaussian blur" layer selected, go up the Blend Mode option at the top of the Layers palette. It's the drop-down box that's currently set to "Normal". Click on the drop-down box to open it, then select the Overlay blend mode from the list:

Change the blend mode of the "gaussian blur" layer to "Overlay".

With the blend mode of the layer set to Overlay, the image in the document window now appears with much higher contrast and the colors appear more saturated:

Both the contrast and color saturation have now increased in the image.

Let's look at our Actions palette again, where we can see that we now have a fourth step, also named Set current layer, added to our action. Let's twirl the step open to view the details, and we can see that this step will change the blend mode of the currently selected layer to Overlay:

A fourth step has been added to the "Soft Glow" action.

We've successfully added our fourth step to the "Soft Glow" action. Only a couple more steps to go, and then we'll have an effect that we can instantly apply to any image in Photoshop, any time we want!

Step 8: Apply The "Gaussian Blur" Filter

To create the soft glow effect, we need to blur the image on our "gaussian blur" layer. Go up to the Filter menu at the top of the screen, choose Blur, and then choose Gaussian Blur. This will bring up Photoshop's Gaussian Blur dialog box. Drag the Radius slider at the bottom of the dialog box towards the right to increase the amount of blurring that's being applied to the layer, or drag the slider to the left to decrease the blur amount. Keep an eye on your image in the document window as you drag the slider so you can see what's happening, and select a radius value that gives your image a nice soft glow effect. I'm going to set my radius value to 13 pixels, which works nicely for my image:

Create the soft glow effect by adjusting the Radius value in the Gaussian Blur dialog box.

Click OK when you're done to accept the blur effect and exit out of the dialog box. Here's my image after applying the Gaussian Blur filter:

The image after applying the Gaussian Blur filter.

If we look in our Actions palette, we can see that a fifth step, Gaussian Blur, has been added to our "Soft Glow" action, and if we twirl open the step, we can see from the details that the radius value in the Gaussian Blur dialog box will automatically be set to 13 pixels every time we run this action:

The fifth step, "Gaussian Blur", appears in the action.

That's great, but what if a radius value of 13 pixels doesn't work as well with the next image we use with this action? What if the next image needs an even higher radius value to achieve the desired glow effect, or a smaller radius value? Maybe, instead of using the same radius value each time the action is played, we should have Photoshop pop open the Gaussian Blur dialog box for us so we can adjust the radius value, if needed, and customize the effect for each image.
As we've already learned, we can easily enable or disable dialog boxes when an action plays by simply clicking on on the dialog box toggle icon to the left of the step. By default, the toggle icons appear empty, which means that the dialog box associated with the step will not appear when the action plays. Since I want the Gaussian Blur dialog box to appear each time I run the action, I'm going to click inside the empty toggle icon to the left of the step. When I do, a small gray dialog box icon appears, telling me that the dialog box will now pop open for me when I play the action:

Click on the dialog box toggle icon for the Gaussian Blur step to have Photoshop pop open the dialog box when the action plays.

Step 9: Lower The Opacity Of The Layer To 65%

To complete the action, let's lower the opacity value of the "gaussian blur" layer so the effect isn't quite as intense. To lower the opacity of the layer, go up to the Opacity option in the top right corner of the Layers palette, directly across from the Blend Mode option. By default, the opacity value is set to 100%. Click on the small arrow to the right of where it says "100%", which will bring up a small slider bar. Use the slider to drag the opacity value down to 65%:

Use the small slider to lower the opacity value of the "gaussian blur" layer to 65%.

Important: As you're dragging the slider to lower the opacity of the layer, make sure you don't release your mouse button until you've dragged the slider to the desired value. Each time you release your mouse button, Photoshop will consider it a new step in the action and you'll end up with multiple steps for lowering the opacity. For example, if you dragged the slider down to 90%, released your mouse button, then dragged the slider to 75%, released your mouse button, and then dragged the slider down to 65%, you'd end up with three steps listed in the action, one lowering the opacity to 90%, another lowering it to 75%, and finally, a third step lowering the opacity to 65%. If this happens to you, wait until you're done recording the action, then simply click on the extra steps you don't need and drag them down on to the Trash Bin at the bottom of the Actions palette to delete them.
Even More Important: Also, if you're using Photoshop CS or later, do not use the scrubby slider to lower the opacity value of the layer. This one, I can't stress enough. Do not use scrubby sliders when recording actions. If you try lowering the opacity of the layer to 65% using the scrubby slider, you'll end up with 35 individual steps in your action, each one lowering the opacity of the layer by 1%. So, no scrubby sliders when recording actions, otherwise you'll be deleting a lot of extra steps when you're done. Been there, done that.
Having said that, once you've lowered the opacity of the layer, you're done recording all the steps needed for the action! Let's look in our Actions palette, where we can see the final step, another one named Set current layer, listed, and if we twirl the step open to view the details, we can see that this final step will lower the opacity of the layer to 65%:

The final step appears in the action.

Here, after lowering the layer opacity, is my image with the completed "Soft Glow" effect:

The wedding photo with the finished "Soft Glow" effect.

Step 10: Stop Recording The Action

We're done recording our action, which means we need to tell Photoshop to stop recording what we're doing. To do that, click on the Stop icon at the bottom of the Actions palette:

Click on the "Stop" icon to finish recording the action.

And with that, we're done! We've successfully recorded our very first action, and we now have an effect that we can instant apply to any other image we want! Let's quickly make sure the action works as expected. I'll open another image in Photoshop:

A new image opened in Photoshop.

To run the new action on the image, I'll select the "Soft Glow" action from inside my "My Actions" set in the Actions palette, then I'll click on the Play icon at the bottom of the palette:

Select the "Soft Glow" action, then click on the Play icon in the Actions palette.

As soon as I click on the Play icon, Photoshop begins running through the steps in the action, first creating a snapshot of the image in the History palette, then duplicating the Background layer, renaming the new layer "gaussian blur", and changing the blend mode of the new layer to Overlay. When it reaches the step where the Gaussian Blur filter is applied to the image, it pauses the action and pops open the Gaussian Blur dialog box for me so I can re-adjust the Radius value if needed:

Photoshop pauses the action and displays the Gaussian Blur dialog box.

Notice how the radius value in the dialog box is already set to 13 pixels, since that's the value we used when we recorded the action. I could change the value here if I wanted to, but I think 13 pixels works well for this image, so I'll simply click OK in the top right corner of the dialog box to accept the setting, exit out of the dialog box, and allow Photoshop to continue running through the steps in the action.
Photoshop continues on, lowering the opacity value of the "gaussian blur" layer to 65% for me, at which point the effect is complete, and it was completed in a fraction of the time it would have taken me to run through all those steps again on my own! Here is the image with the final "Soft Glow" effect:

The "Soft Glow" effect has been easily applied to a second image using the action.

Looks like our action works exactly as planned! We can now use it to quickly apply our "Soft Glow" effect on any image we want!
Since we put in the time and effort to record the action, we should probably save it so we don't lose it. We'll look at how to save and load actions next!

Saving Actions In Photoshop

If you've taken the time to record an action in Photoshop, or you've edited an existing action, you're going to want to save it, otherwise you run the risk if losing it if Photoshop decides to crash on you. Thankfully, Adobe has made it easy for us to save our actions, although there is one thing you need to be aware of. Photoshop does not allow us to save individual actions. We can only save action sets. So if you record or edit an action and want to save it (which of course you'll want to do), you'll need to select and save the entire action set. This is one of the main reasons why I suggested earlier that you should avoid placing your own actions inside any of the action sets that Photoshop comes with. Keep all of your actions inside your own action sets, which will make it easy to save them, load them, and keep them organized.
To save an action set, first select the set you want to save in the Actions palette. I have a couple of actions inside my "My Actions" set - the "Soft Glow" action we created in the previous section and the "Improved Photo Corners" action, which is a customized version of the original "Photo Corners" action that comes with Photoshop. I want to save this action set, so I'll select it in the Actions palette:

Select the action set you want to save in the Actions palette.

With the action set selected, click on the menu icon in the top right corner of the Actions palette, or if you're using Photoshop CS2 or earlier, click on the small right-pointing arrow. This brings up the Actions palette's menu. Select Save Actions from the menu:

Choose "Save Actions" from the Actions palette's menu.

Photoshop will pop open the Save dialog box. Save your action set to a location on your computer where you'll be able to easily access it later. I've created a folder on my Desktop named "Actions" and I'll save the "My Actions" set into this folder. This will make it easy for me to find the action set later if I need to load it back into Photoshop. Make sure you save your action set with the extension ".atn" after the name if you want your actions to be playable on both a PC and a Mac. When you're ready, click on the Save icon in the dialog box to save your actions:

Choose a location to save your action set, then click "Save".

Your actions are now saved! If Photoshop crashes at this point, your actions will be safe. Of course, if your computer crashes, you'll probably lose Photoshop, your actions and everything else, so I would highly suggest backing up your actions on to a recordable CD or DVD, or on to an external hard drive just in case.

Resetting The Actions Palette To The Defaults

Now that we've saved our actions, let's clear everything out of the Actions palette and reset it to just the Default Actions set. To do that, click once again on the menu icon in the top right corner of the Actions palette, or the small arrow if you're using a version of Photoshop prior to CS3, and select Reset Actions from the menu:

Select "Reset Actions" from the Actions palette's menu.

Photoshop will pop up a warning box, as if often does, asking if you really want to replace the existing actions with the Default Actions set. Click OK to close the dialog box and rest your actions:

Click OK in the warning box that appears.

If we look in our Actions palette now, we can see that all of the action sets have disappeared. Only the Default Actions set remains:

The actions have now been reset in the Actions palette.

Loading Actions Into Photoshop

Now that we've cleared out and cleaned up our Actions palette, let's load the action set we saved a moment ago. Click on the menu icon (or the small right-pointing arrow) in the top right corner of the Actions palette to bring up the menu, then select Load Actions from the menu choices:

Select "Load Actions" from the Actions palette's menu.

This brings up the Load dialog box. Navigate to where you saved your action set on your computer, select the action set, then click on the Load button in the dialog box. My action set was saved to a folder named "Actions" on my Desktop, so that's where I'll navigate to. I'll click on the "My Actions" set, then I'll click Load:

Navigate to your action set, select it, then click on the "Load" button.

And now, if we look once again in the Actions palette, we can see that the "My Actions" set has been successfully loaded back in to Photoshop:

The "My Actions" set has been loaded back in to Photoshop.

Notice how the action set appears already twirled open in the Actions palette. That's because it was twirled open when I saved it. Action sets will appear either opened or closed after being loaded in to the Actions palette depending on how they appeared when they were saved.
And there we have it! We've now covered everything you need to know to get up and running with Photoshop actions!