Back to Actions Page

Actions Installation

1) Once you have downloaded the action, the first thing you need to do is Unzip the action files. We recommend that you unzip and store all of your actions into one common “Actions” folder on your computer. This way, all of your actions are easy to backup, and transfer to new versions of Adobe Photoshop when you decide to upgrade to new versions. The “Actions” folder you create does not need to be in your Adobe directory/folder.

2) Once you have unzipped the action into your actions folder, you will need to install the action in Photoshop. To do this, load up Photoshop and click F9 (or go to the menu Window>Actions) to bring up the Actions Palette. Click the icon in the upper right hand corner of the Actions Palette, and a drop-down menu will appear.

Scroll to "Load Actions..."

3) When the dialog box appears, navigate to your Actions folder and click on the Action you have just downloaded.
It should now appear in your Actions Palette and it is now available for use!

How to Use Actions

1) Now that you have your new Action loaded into your Actions Palette, here’s how to use it. Notice the Action shows up as a folder in the Actions Palette. This folder contains various Actions in a “set.” To open the folder and use the individual actions, click on the little arrow icon beside the folder icon. This will open the folder containing the set of Actions, where you can select which of the Actions you want to use, by clicking on it once.

2) Now that the Action has been highlighted, to RUN the action, simply click on the little “Play” icon at the bottom of the Actions Palette. The Action will now run, and apply the effect to your image!

Troubleshooting

Actions will only run if certain conditions are true for your image. If the Action is not running successfully on your image, check to make sure of the following:

• Your image must be an 8-bit RGB image. Actions make use of filters that may not run on 16-bit or higher images, so the image must be converted to an 8-bit image if it is not already.
  
• The starting image must be flattened before running the Action
  
• The background layer of your starting image must still be titled “Background”. The Action will not run correctly if the background layer has been renamed.
  

If you are still experiencing any difficulties with the Action, please feel free to ask any questions on our forum at: http://www.photographybb.com/forum