Good morning everyone! Happy Monday! I hope that everyone had a great weekend! I spent mine painting my parent’s house! Let me tell you…there is nothing quite like painting a house in 100 degree weather! I am tired and well, quite frankly..I can hardly move! LOL…I think I need to work out more! Of course,  if I work out, then it takes away from my scrapping time and I just can’t have that, so I guess I will just have to take the soreness and quit complaining!

Anyway,  my point, and I think I actually DO have one, is that this weekend, I would have LOVED if I could have just pushed a button and all the painting would have been done for me! Wouldn’t it be have been nice if I could have gone from a house that needed paint badly to a freshly painted house in just a matter of minutes?  Of COURSE it would! In fact, there are times, when I am processing my photos that I think that it sure would be nice if there was an easy button and I could just push it and all my photos would look nice! The good news is, that even though there is not an easy button for painting a house, there IS an easy button for turning you dull photos into something worth showing off and it comes in the form of an action!!  If you have never heard of an action, then you don’t know what you are missing! Actions, in Photoshop,  combine a series of commands that the user has recorded and  allows them to be put into action with one click of a button!  Actions can do anything from help with your photography workflow to enhance your picture image.  Another great thing about actions is that not only can YOU write one, but you can purchase them or, and this is the BEST part you can download them for FREE from online sites dedicated to making photography easier! There are a LOT of actions available that can create all kinds of effects on your photos, from converting your photo to black and white to sharpening and reducing noise! You name it and it is probably an action!!

Here are a few examples of some of the actions that I love to use!

Original:

Using a Free Action From Pioneer Woman: soft and faded

and this one by Pioneer Woman using her Sunshine Action.

You can see,  that running an action on a photo can totally change it’s appearance!  In many cases, it hardly seems like the same photo! Using an action on a photo can help set the tone and make it ready for ANY type of layout that you want to put it on!

So now that I have talked you into trying an action, you probably want to know HOW to get them in your Photoshop and ready to use!

Every version of Photoshop has its own set of install directions, so you will need to read up on your version.

For Photoshop Elements  try these install directions:

• Make sure that Photoshop Elements is closed
• Open your Start Menu
• Go to Computer>OS (C:) >programdata>Adobe>Photoshop Elements>7.0 (or your version of PSE)>Photo Creations>Photo Effect
• Paste your Action into this folder

Programdata is not the same as Program Files.  If you don’t see programDATA then go to Start.  In the “search programs and files” box type   “folder options” Click on the the View tab of the Folder Options dialog box.  Click the  button  that says “show hidden files, folders, drive

• Once you have pasted your action, open PSE. Open a photo in Photoshop Elements.  Locate the Effects Palette . If you can’t find your Effects Panel, go to Window> Effects to reveal the palette.
• Click on the Photo Effects button (3rd from left under the word Effects).  In the drop-down list to the right of this button, select Show All.
• Click on the icon to the right of the word “Effects” that has a down arrow next to three horizontal lines.  Click on Show Names in the resulting menu.
• To run the action, double click on the thumbnail.

If you have any problems, you can easily find answers on the internet..just do a QUICK search!

In Photoshop, the easiest way to install actions is to drag and drop the actions file on the opened Photoshop window or to double click on the action itself. It will automatically install  and add itself to your action menu.

Please, please PLEASE remember that sometimes Photoshop gets a little wonky..and your actions will disappear. SAVE them somewhere so that you can get to them easily and you can upload again if need be!

And that is it!! Actions at a glance! If you haven’t already, try one and see how you like them! I promise that it will change the way you edit your pictures and will really make them come alive for your scrapbooking pages!

Have a great week!

Happy Scrapping,

Tamara