Creating an Action

Tutorial by Cletus.

Creating actions is really pretty easy. Let's walk through the steps for creating a sepia toning action. Make sure the action palette is visible (it usually shares space with the History palette.) If you don't see the action palette you can get at it through the View menu. Start by clicking the Create new action button at the bottom of the Actions palette.


In the New Action dialog box, name your action (I used "My Sepia".) You can also choose an action set to place the action in, and/or assign your new action to a function key. When you're ready, click Record


The New Action dialog closes and Photoshop is now recording our action. Notice in the Actions palette that our new action is highlighted and the record button is active.


We're now ready to perform the steps that go into our action.

The first step in my sepia toning process is desaturating the image. I did this by pressing Ctrl + Shift + U (on a Mac this would be Command + Shift + U). Notice that the image is now black and white, and there is a Desaturate step in our action.


The next step in the sepia process is adding a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer by clicking on the Create new fill or adjustment layer button in the Layers palette.
In the Hue/Saturation dialog box I set Hue to 15, Saturation to 25 and checked Colorize. After making these adjustments I clicked Ok.


There is now a Make adjustment layer step below the desaturate step. The Sepia process is complete. Clicking the Stop playing/recording button stops recording our action.


Our action is done so now we need to try it out! I kept the same file open and used File > Revert to go back to my starting color image. Make sure our new action is highlighted in the Actions palette (click on it if it is not) and then click on the Play selection button.


Photoshop plays back the steps we recorded and in one click we have a sepia toned picture!