How to save and load Actions in Photoshop?

Once you finish recording Actions (see how to record action in Photoshop?) in Photoshop, you may want to save it to avoid the risk of losing it on any kind of crash in your Photoshop. Thankfully, Adobe has made it easy for us to save and load our actions. 

Video Walk-through

Saving Actions In Photoshop

Note: 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, you'll need to select and save the entire action set. So I suggested that you should avoid placing your own actions inside default action sets that comes with Photoshop. Keep all of your actions inside your own action sets, which will make it easy to save them, load them, and keep them organized.

Here we go,To save an action set, first select the set you want to save in the Actions palette. We should have a couple of actions inside your Action Set. For now, I have "My_action_group" set - the "gaussian_effect" action that I created in the previous tutorial. I want to save this action set, so I'll select it 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. Click on Save Actions.

Photoshop will then pop up 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 "my_actions" and I'll save the "My_actions_group" 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 button in the dialog box to save your actions.

Your actions are now saved. If Photoshop crashes at this point, your actions will be safe and you can load them into Photoshop the resides on any PC.

Resetting the Actions Palette to Defaults

Now as we've saved our actions, let's clear every actions leaving the Default Action Set. For this, click 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 then click on Reset Actions from the menu.

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

Loading Actions Into Photoshop

Now that we've cleared out our Actions palette, let's load the action set we saved a moment ago. Click on the menu icon top right corner of the Actions palette to bring up the menu, then select Load Actions from the menu choices.

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 "my_ations" on my Desktop, so that's where I'll navigate to. I'll click on the "My_actions_group" set, then I'll click Load.

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

You might have noticed that 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.

We've now covered everything you need to know to get up and running with Photoshop actions! Cheers!!

How to Create | Record Action in Photoshop?

It is a simple tutorial that will teach you how to create and use actions in Photoshop. If you are new to Photoshop, you may find yourself repeating the same steps over and over again, because you like the effect that certain adjustments have on your photos. Thanks to  Photoshop “actions,” which are basically just a series of steps that can be recorded, by pressing one button, and can be applied to your photo – very similar to a Light-room preset. You can easily create your own actions in Photoshop to simplify your work.

Video Walk-through

I will start opening an image in Photoshop.

Step 1: Get Action Pallete from Window Menu

Step 2: Create a Custom Action Group
Click on the folder icon, Create New Set. You will then a box box, at which point you can rename your folder if you want for easy identification, especially if you have a lot of actions stored in Photoshop.

Step 3: Create a New Action 
With your new set selected, click the Create New Action icon, circled in the figure.

Step 4: Create a duplicate layer 
To create duplicate layer, select the background layer and press Ctrl + J or right click on the background layer and click on Create duplicate layer. This action will be recorded that you can see in action pallete.

Step 5: Apply some adjustment to the layers 
The best thing you can do when you are writing actions is to work with Adjustment Layers. So, every time you want to apply an effect to your photo, select Layer, New Adjustment Layer, and then the type of adjustment you want to make. Adjust Levels Click on Image --> Adjustments --> Levels Set Levels as shown in the figure.

Apply Gaussian Blur

Set Blend mode to Soft Light

Step 6: Stop recording Action 
Go to Action Palette and click on Stop Icon as shown in the figure below;

Step 7: Open new image in Photoshop

Step 8: Apply Action to get the result 
As we have already create an Action named "gaussian_effect" in My_action_group set, we can simply play that action from action palette to apply it onto the new image.

Result:

How to make cartooned background leaving the people look real

This tutorial will show you how to get realistic people within a cartooned or say sketched photo. This tutorial requires no major specialization in Photoshop tools. A beginner too can try for this tutorials and this is really a very easy but nice effect to apply in any photo. All that is needed is Adobe Photoshop Application of any version. Hope this tutorial will help you.

Well, we will start picking up a picture that will finally take the following look:

Final Result of the tutorial - getting realistic people with cartooned background

In above picture, we can see that the environment is cartooned but the people sitting there look realistic. So now we will learn how to do this. Here are the steps;

Step 1:

Firstly, run Adobe Photoshop application ( Shortcut: Press Windows(key) + R and then type ‘Photoshop’ and press enter).

Now we need to import picture from our computer. If you want the image I am using in this tutorial you can simply Right click on the image and click on ‘save picture as’ and save it in your computer. Otherwise you can use your own.

Go to file menu –> click on open –> (an open dialogue box will appear) –> select the image and then click on OK.

Step 2:

When you finish importing the image, the image will appear as a layer named background which is locked by default.

Step 3:

Now we need to create a duplicate layer of the background layer. For this, (make sure your background layer is selected and Move tool ( V ) is active) press Ctrl + J. Or just right click on the background layer and the click on ‘Duplicate layer’

A duplicate layer will appear above background layer with the name ‘layer 1’ in the layers palette.

Step 4:

If you see the result as above, you are going great. Now we are applying filter property in the new layer.

Before that, set foreground color to black and background color to white.

Now, we are applying filter to layer 1, so make sure it is selected.

Then, go to Filter menu –> click on Artistic –> click on Poster Edges

you will get a window like below;

Click on OK. You will see the result as below.

Step 5:

Now apply vector mask to the new layer. It is very important step you are going through. All our effect that we are making depends on vector mask.

For this, Keep layer 1 selected and then click on Add vector mask icon in the bottom bar of the layers palette.

Step 6;

We are almost to completion of this tutorial. We will need to do now is to just use brush tool to the area that we want to look real.

Select brush tool (or simply press B) and then use brush set picker to define brush size and hardness and type of brush. For now use 46 px brush diameter and 0 level of hardness. Choose the type of the brush as I have used. Notice that, the brush set picker tool appear only when brush tool is active.

Step 6:

Now apply brush to the area that you want to look as before.

Step 7:

Finally the result will be as follow:

Blur Background to focus person using photoshop

Video Walk-through

Video tutorial of Photoshop to blur background to focus a person in any picture.. tools used (filter, mask, brush)

Light Beams - Glowing beams - Photoshop CS5 tutorials

Video Walk-through

Tutorial Adobe Photoshop CS5 english - light effects - a photoshop tutorial to teach how to create light spirals using the pen tool creating the path and applying outer glow effect to make it shine like a light beam.

3D Pop out effect - Photoshop tutorial

Video Walk through

Photoshop CS5 tutorial - 3D pop out effect in 2d image - This tutorial will explain you how to make a dog jumping out of a photo-frame withing a 2D image. 

Awesome facebook timeline cover photo design using photoshop CS5

Video Walk through 

This video will show you step by step to make your own custom Facebook timeline cover photo using Adobe Photoshop.

A person jumping out of photo frame - tutorial

This tutorial will show you how to get a person out of any photo frame. This is really a good technique that a designer should know. This isn’t so hard enough to do. Even a beginner can try for this tutorial. I am using Adobe Photoshop CS5 for this tutorial. But, it says without going that you can have this done in any versions of Photoshop.

Preview of the final result

Step1:

I have used a photo, a person jumping on the helipad. U can used another photo or just right click on this photo and save image in your computer and use the same.

Now load the image in the Photoshop (shouldn’t be a hard task for you). For this you can just click an and drag the image over the Photoshop icon on the taskbar (if it is already open) and place within the document.

When you place this image in Photoshop it will be placed as a layer named Background in the layers palette.

Step2:

Initially, the background layers are often locked with a sign of locker. For now, we need to unlock that layer. For this, double click on the background layer. You should see a window like below;

If you want to give another name to the layer the type that name in the name field as mentioned. Otherwise leave as it is. For this tutorial, I just click on OK without any changes. Now my background layer turns to be Layer 0.

Step 3:

To create the frame border 

click on the marquee tool as mentioned in the figure. Now draw a rectangular area ( you may decide how much area you want your image to be displayed). Then Press Alt key and again draw a rectangle inside the previously drawn rectangle. Pressing alt key will remove the selected area and will give us with the required frame to certain width.

Step 4:

Now we need to create a new layer where we will make border for our frame.

 

In layers pallete just click on the icon I mentioned. It will create a new layer with name layer 1.

Rename the new layer as frameborder.

Step 5:

Now to get a frame border, choose a foreground color as you wish. For now, I have chosen white color.

Now click on Paint bucket tool as mentioned in figure, then fill on the selected area (But make sure that you have chosen the frameborder layer.

Step 6:

Now the important part of our design comes here. We need to give a 3D look to our frameborder. Keep the layer frameborder selected. Press V to activate move tool and then Press Ctrl + T. It will bring transformation.

Now Press Control Key and Click on the top left corner and bottom left corner, respectively, of the frameborder layer and drag it so as it looks like the figure below.

Step 7:

Now Using pent tool, draw a path around the frame border. Notice that, I have included the upper part of the person. Just draw path as directed in the figure below. To finish drawing the path, you need to join the beginning point and the end point.

Step 8:

Now we need to delete the outer part of the frame excluding the person upper body part. We you finish drawing path (with the pen tool selected), right click on the path and click on make selection. You will get a window as above. Click on OK. Then you will get to see some selections there. This is the selection inside the frame. To invert the selection, Press CTRL+I

 

Now make sure Layer 0 is selected and then press delete.  You will get the result as below.

Step 10:

We have completed almost 80 percent of our task. As mentioned below, Select Eraser Tool, make sure the frameborder layer is selected and then erase the part of the layer that encounter the body part of the person.

Step 11:

Now to place something as background, create a new layer and give it a name "background" and then place it at the bottom level in the layers pallete.

 Step 12:

Now fill the layer with a gradient color. For this follow the steps as mentioned in the figure. Choose foreground color: #ca9e7c

background color: #40a2e4

Further more, choose radial gradient and make sure the foreground to background color gradient is selected.

Now draw a radial gradient in the background layer.

Final Result: