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How to Make Actions in Photoshop
Gather round! Because today Treva will teach you how to make Actions in Photoshop. What are Actions, you ask? Photoshop's help file defines them as:
"An action is a series of tasks that you play back on a single file or a batch of files—menu commands, palette options, tool actions, and so on. For example, you can create an action that changes the size of an image, applies a filter to the image for a particular effect, and then saves the file in the desired format."
Simply put, they let you record what you are doing, and then you can play back those actions with one click. This is very, very useful for making icons if you run on the IJ crowd that has to make batches of 100. No, Photoshop cannot full color your icons for you, but if you are just doing something simple like applying a color, resizing the icon, and saving it for you. You'd be surprised how much time this can save when you add it up over lots of icons.
As a warning, THIS PROCESS CAN BE VERY MEMORY INTENSIVE, DEPENDING ON WHAT YOU ARE DOING. What I'm showing today shouldn't blow up any computers though.
For this tutorial, I will show you how I can record an action to make an icon that looks something like this:
Start with opening the file you want. Do all the things to set up your icon, like cropping, any hand coloring, or surface blurring. Photoshop obviously can't do all of this for you. Go ahead and save this as a .psd, named however you like. Then, under Window, open up the History pallet. After that, click on the Actions tab. It should look something like this:
Your setup might be a bit different, because I am using CS3, but you get the general idea. Scroll down to the bottom of the Actions list, and press the create new action button.
You should get a pop up window.
Name the action whatever you like, in my case, I named it Bob. Then press record. I don't ever bother with any of the other stuff, but you can play with those settings on your own time. Your action pallet should then look like this:
That red thing means it is recording your actions. Anything you do while that button is pressed will be recorded by the Actions command. So the first thing we'll do is go to our Image drop down, go to Adjustments, and then Hue/Saturation. For this icon, I click the Colorize checkbox, find a color I like, and then press okay. But make sure you have the right layer selected first!
Look up at your Actions pallet and you should now see this:
See how it says Hue/Saturation? That means it has recorded that. So next, go to Image, Image Size, and change your size to 100 pixels by 100 pixels. Make sure you have it set to constrain proportions! If your icon isn't square already, just change the largest side to 100, and the proportions thing will do the other math.
Now your actions pallet should show Image Size as well:
Next, go to File, Save As, and save your file however you want it. I usually go with a .png, since they are small but still clearer than a .jpg or a .gif. Note that the actions command ISN'T smart enough to read your mind on what you want to name the file, so it will usually do whatever you named the file to start plus copy.
Again, your Actions pallet should have a new line of text on it, saying Save. Now that you've gotten everything you want to automate done, press the button next to the red record button, called stop.
And now you are done! Open up another file, get it all ready, press the play button, and be amazed!
Hopefully that helps and saves all you icon makers some time! Enjoy.
If you have any questions, feel free to leave them here and I'll answer them when I can.
"An action is a series of tasks that you play back on a single file or a batch of files—menu commands, palette options, tool actions, and so on. For example, you can create an action that changes the size of an image, applies a filter to the image for a particular effect, and then saves the file in the desired format."
Simply put, they let you record what you are doing, and then you can play back those actions with one click. This is very, very useful for making icons if you run on the IJ crowd that has to make batches of 100. No, Photoshop cannot full color your icons for you, but if you are just doing something simple like applying a color, resizing the icon, and saving it for you. You'd be surprised how much time this can save when you add it up over lots of icons.
As a warning, THIS PROCESS CAN BE VERY MEMORY INTENSIVE, DEPENDING ON WHAT YOU ARE DOING. What I'm showing today shouldn't blow up any computers though.
For this tutorial, I will show you how I can record an action to make an icon that looks something like this:
Start with opening the file you want. Do all the things to set up your icon, like cropping, any hand coloring, or surface blurring. Photoshop obviously can't do all of this for you. Go ahead and save this as a .psd, named however you like. Then, under Window, open up the History pallet. After that, click on the Actions tab. It should look something like this:
Your setup might be a bit different, because I am using CS3, but you get the general idea. Scroll down to the bottom of the Actions list, and press the create new action button.
You should get a pop up window.
Name the action whatever you like, in my case, I named it Bob. Then press record. I don't ever bother with any of the other stuff, but you can play with those settings on your own time. Your action pallet should then look like this:
That red thing means it is recording your actions. Anything you do while that button is pressed will be recorded by the Actions command. So the first thing we'll do is go to our Image drop down, go to Adjustments, and then Hue/Saturation. For this icon, I click the Colorize checkbox, find a color I like, and then press okay. But make sure you have the right layer selected first!
Look up at your Actions pallet and you should now see this:
See how it says Hue/Saturation? That means it has recorded that. So next, go to Image, Image Size, and change your size to 100 pixels by 100 pixels. Make sure you have it set to constrain proportions! If your icon isn't square already, just change the largest side to 100, and the proportions thing will do the other math.
Now your actions pallet should show Image Size as well:
Next, go to File, Save As, and save your file however you want it. I usually go with a .png, since they are small but still clearer than a .jpg or a .gif. Note that the actions command ISN'T smart enough to read your mind on what you want to name the file, so it will usually do whatever you named the file to start plus copy.
Again, your Actions pallet should have a new line of text on it, saying Save. Now that you've gotten everything you want to automate done, press the button next to the red record button, called stop.
And now you are done! Open up another file, get it all ready, press the play button, and be amazed!
Hopefully that helps and saves all you icon makers some time! Enjoy.
If you have any questions, feel free to leave them here and I'll answer them when I can.
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