7 Actions Palette
Used
for recording and playing back tasks
Grouped with the History palette
In the default arrangement, this one will be in the group which is third from the top in your column of palettes. If the Actions palette is hidden behind the Tool Presets or History palette, click on its title tab to bring it to the front, or choose Window > Actions.
This is not a feature that beginners will be likely to use, so I’ll just describe it briefly, and leave you to figure it out as you become more experienced. It is most useful for professionals who need to do the same series of steps over and over again. For an excellent, and very thorough tutorial on all aspects of using actions, download Danny Raphael’s lesson, found here.
When you perform a sequence of steps, or an “action” Photoshop can create a record of every command, setting, and tool that you use, as well as the order in which you used them.
Many, but not all commands, can be recorded. Tools that can be recorded include the marquee, lasso, magic wand, crop, move, line, paint bucket, and type tools, and the Paths, Layers, Channels, and History palettes.
Tools that cannot be recorded include the painting and toning tools, tool options and preferences. If these tools are needed for a procedure, you can include an Insert Menu Item step in the action, or insert a “stop” which will allow you to manually perform a nonrecordable step, and then click Continue to have the action resume.
Photoshop comes with several default actions. To play them, or ones you’ve made yourself, open the file you want the action performed on, and select the action name to play the entire sequence of steps. You can play one set in an action by clicking on that set’s name, or choose a particular command from which to start play.
If you are not sure you’ll like the results, make a new snapshot in the History palette before you play the action. That way, you can undo the effects of the action if you don’t like them, by clicking on that snapshot.
Click the Play button to run the action.
If you are still using Photoshop 6, there is an excellent twenty eight page pdf reference file in the Photoshop Actions folder. It covers all of the preset actions that ship with Photoshop and includes example images showing results. Find it in your Photoshop 6/Presets/Photoshop Actions folder. I recommend that you print it out so you’ll be familiar with what you have available. This was not included with Photoshop 7.
Please note that this entire palettes section has been updated from a Photoshop 6 version (which was updated from a 5.5 version). Wherever the palette is essentially the same as it was in 6, I have continued to use the screen capture illustrations made using that version. So if you notice cosmetic discrepancies in the illustrations, that's why. In all instances where features were added or changed, I have made new screen captures.
The illustration below shows the Actions palette with numbers added at the bottom for ID purposes. This is the default Actions palette, and the items shown are all actions titles. Each can be expanded by clicking the little right-facing triangle next to its name to show the individual steps in that action.
Running vertically along the left side of the palette, is a series of check boxes indicating steps that will be included in the action (if the menu were expanded to show steps). If you want to skip a step, you can uncheck its box.
Just to the right of the check boxes is a square which, in several cases, contains an icon. These indicate actions which contain modals, or dialog boxes which require responses. If you turn off the modal controls by clicking the icon, Photoshop will run the action with the choices which were made when the action was recorded.
The numbered icons at the bottom of the palette are 1) Stop Playing/Recording, 2) Record, 3) Play, 4) New Set, 5) New Action, 6) Trash/Delete
Below, is the actions palette menu. To see this, click on the little arrow in the top right corner of the palette.
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