April 18, 2009

Having Fun with Actions

If you are going to use actions on your photographs, it is important to remember that you can mix and match them and have a lot of fun trying out different combinations! You don't just have to run one action on an image and then be done. You can run two or three or even more actions on the same image if you want. There are so many different effects you can get depending on which actions you run and also which order you run them in.

I chose two pictures that I took of my little sweetheart recently and I just played around with all three sets of my actions to show you how many different looks you can really get! And I could have kept going... this isn't it!







And the thing that is exciting to me is that there is no right or wrong here! Each of these images is a little (or a lot) different than the others and yet I like them all. As a sidenote: There are definitely times when I will run an action on a certain image and I will not like the results. This can be due to the lighting or the coloring in the original photograph and the way the action is processing it. So you do have to remember that not all actions will work on all photographs, especially the ones that have a more extreme effect. Actions like my simple color boost, on the other hand, are made to give you a nice subtle pop of color, without changing the tone of the image much, if at all. These types of actions typically will work on every photograph and can easily be used as part of your every-day workflow.

That wraps up my installment of photoshop action tips for the week. I hope that you had fun learning more about actions and the different ways you can mix and match them! Please feel free to email me if you have any more questions about my actions. I am always more than happy to help!

7 comments:

Niella said...

great tips:-)

tfs!

p.s your lil' sweetheart is such a lil' cutie!

Nancy L. said...

I'm looking into buy Photoshop, these tips are great, thanks!

Kim said...

Can we purchase your actions? I love the color boost and I am just starting to use PSE on my photos....please let me know where is the best place to purchase actions.
Thanks!

Stacey said...

Awesome tips! I don't have photoshop but I lam loving all that your sharing about it. I love your little girls sweet little shoes. She is adorable.

maggie holmes said...

kim - yes you can purchase them... you can find them on my blog at www.maggieholmes.typepad.com

thanks everyone!

Jen said...

Maggie, I have a question about saving your photos after using actions. Do you save the jpgs as Save As or do you save Save to Web? I noticed you save as 240 dpi so I am thinking it is the former. Is the case on all your photos? Thanks in advance.

Michelle said...

Will your actions be able to work with PSE 5 or do I need to upgrade to PSE 7? Just wondering...hopefully I can spend the money on the actions and not more software :)