Actions Question

[Waif]

Hi, I was wondering if anyone could explain a bit about actions to me?

I'm confused about what to do when you have finished making one - does PS save it itself or do you have to save the document?

I haven't really experimented much (far too British and terrified that I will break something if I press the wrong button!) and I'm not a professional photographer so I don't batch process, but sometimes I do something with a picture, like the effect but have completely forgotten how I got there - so can you 'post-effect' capture actions? I mean scrolling back through the history palette?

Thanks in advance :)

[Bindii]

*bump* and *Grind*

For anyone that may have missed this post...:)

[StagePhotography.co.uk]

Paint Shop Pro has a history scroll on the right side
which details all your actions..

You can even save them as a script if you want to...

Can't help with PS or CS. sorry.

....

[Stemmy]

Ok I don't know how far you have got but here goes.

In PS there is the actions palette. If you click the little down arrow next to where it says "Actions" then you can select "New Action". Select a name and a location for your new action then at the bottom you will see some video recorder buttons.

First open an image in photoshop. Then go back to the actions palette and hit the record button (a red circle) then do all the things you want to do to your image. You can include saving your image etc in the action if you want. The after you have completed all the things you want to do to your image hit the "Stop" button at the bottom of the Actions palette.

You can now see your action and all the instructions within that action in the actions palette. Next to each instruction you will see a little box. If you tick this box photoshop will halt the action at that point and allow you to input some data. I have an action that numbers prints - photoshop halts at the numbering section of the action to allow me to put in the number I want. I then press enter and the script continues until it either reaches the end or comes across another input section.

That is about it really - if you want to use the script on one image open the image in photoshop and then go to the scripts section - make sure the script is ticked by its name and then hit the "Run" button. If you want to run a batch on multiple files go to "File" "Automate Batch" then select the action you want to run and then the folder with the images in.

Hope this is what you were after.

[Waif]

Thanks, I've saved that and will use it! :)