Okay, so you bought the actions...now what??


If this is the first time you've installed actions, first of all let me say THANK YOU for liking my actions so much!! And if it's not the first time, then thank you for liking my actions so much!! (though if it's not the first time, I'm not exactly sure why you need this tutorial. Either to read my fabulous writing, or I suppose it could be a refresher. Okay.)

Now that we've gotten that out of the way...time to install the actions!

Once you've downloaded the file from the store, you'll need to unzip it. 

Then you need to move your unzipped file somewhere that you are happy with it, and where you'll remember you put it. I have a subfolder under "my scrapbooking stuff" called "actions," and that's where I put all of mine. There is a folder Adobe puts on your computer for their actions, so I suppose that would be a logical place, but I never remember where that is, so my way works for me. Just don't put it on your desktop, or you'll have issues when you move the file later.

Okay, now that you've moved it and noted to yourself where you're putting it, go ahead and open Photoshop. Here's the fun, easy part. 

First thing to do: click on the little triangle "PLAY" button by your Layers palette. Don't see that? Go up to Window>Actions and then you'll see it.

Click on the down-arrow with three lines next to it, which will open up a box of things you can do within the actions menu. Choose "Load Actions." Then go back to the folder you just put the actions into, and click "load." There they are!!

And now to use one:
First: open a picture you want to test the actions on.

There are two different views of actions. If you have it at the default, click on the name of the action, followed by the "play" triangle button on the bottom of the palette. If you've changed to "button mode" (the top option you'll see when you click on the drop-down menu for actions), you only have to click on the button to get it to play. The default action is pretty cool if you want to see all the steps the action is taking, but usually I like it in button mode for simplicity. 

And that's it!! If you have any questions, please feel free to email me: charla@charlaarts.com . I'll try to reply as quickly and helpfully as I'm able!