13 PhotoShop Actions To Add To Your Design Toolbox

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Are you PhotoShop user that tends to have projects where you have to do a certain sequence of commands to over and over again or large batch of images that need a lot work? PhotoShop has a feature where you can create  playback for a set commands that you can save and us it whenever you need. This play back feature is called Actions. Adobe Photoshop Actions was designed to take a series of task you do repetitively and make it a one it one click and PhotoShop will play your actions for you. Actions can do almost anything and things it can not do you can add ‘stops” you can go in and manually complete those steps and then continue the action.

PhotoShop comes with predefined actions that help with the most commonly used commands and tasks. But the beauty of actions is, you can always create and add more. If you are looking for certain design, but not sure how to do it you can search for actions that another designer created.

My favorite Actions

There are so many free and premium actions available. A lot of them are are more than a few years old but will work with new versions of Photoshop. Today, I decided instead of sharing a hundred different actions that most have already seen, I would share some of my favorites. Most of these actions can be found on DeviantArt under the Photoshop Resources section.  I also tried to find a mixture of older and new ones that you may not have seen on other sites.

1. Vintage

The Vintage PhotoShop action by Roy Adkins takes a modern image and gives it a vintage, worn, and  yellowed, look to the image. This type of look can be found on older and antique pictures. Today, this accidental design is popular and a lot of designers work hard to create this this realistic look. You can see  this type working in magazines, cover art, and sometimes in product ads. This is an older plugin but its a good one to keep in your design toolbox.

2. Whiten Teeth and Eyes

Whiten is an action created to fix eyes an teeth. You know stained teach. It will take the yellowed and stained whites and make them whiter. Its pretty easy to fix these issues, but if you are in hurry, its quick and easy to just hit the action button and it does it for you.

3. PhotoShop Actions – 33

Photoshop Actions – 33 is a set of 12 actions that can be used to change of the color and the effects of your images.

4. 50 Photoshop Post Work Actions

50 Photoshop Post Work Actions is a huge action pack that with one click you can have actions for retro, color enhancements, extreme vintage, final touch up, and framing. Works with Adobe Photoshop CS/CS2/CS3/CS4. For more check out the action pack over at DeviantArt.

5. Dream Blur Action For Photoshop

Dream Blur is a good one. I do not use it very often but its a great effect to use on your images. With some images you many not notice much of a change with this effect, you have to find the right types of images to get the prefect look, such as the image example.

6. HDR Fantasticalizer

HDR Fantasicalizer is creates the look of HDR photography without needing multiply images of the same scene, expensivee DSLR cameras, and the time to work on the image. You will have to play saturation and other settings to find the look you want.

7. IR Effect Look

IR Effect Look – is a action that recreates the infrared look created by filters and expensive cameras. This action is isn’t perfect, it can create some incredible images. Infrared red pictures are created with infrared light. When images are created by the camera, filters are sometimes used.

8.  CoLoR effect 4.5

CoLoR effect 4.5 is a PhotoShop action pack that has three actions that will take a dull image and give it more color or give it a more more a vintage look.

9. Sky Effects 3.6

Sky Effects is an update to the older versions of Sky Effects . This set of actions will change the way the sky looks. But it will also effect the colors of the rest of image as well.

10. Classic 3.8

Classic 3.8 is another color enhancement action. This action has three actions you can choose from. Out of these actions, 1 and 2 are my favorites.

11. HDR Effect 4.3

HDR Effect 4.3 is another action that creates HDR effect. Of course, these type of effect isn’t perfect but it make your images look almost like HDR.

12. My First Action Set

My First Action Set – is another action pack. You can choose from five different action to give the image a different look.

13.  Action – 10

Action – 10 – is an action that will darken the edges as a result the picture is darkened. This action gives the image a vintage look. This type color and lighting effect is popular and I see a lot in in product ads and fashion shots.

Final Thoughts

Actions are a great way to help your production time and shorten the time spent on common tasks. They can even be helpful for designers, who are looking for an effect that they they can not do themselves. actions can even help designers learn how to create their own effects.

When looking for actions, you might notice that a lot of them look the same, but they are different in some way. There are so many ways to create effects, some work better than others. So pick the ones that you like best and use them. A good action will be broken down into layers. You want them broken down into layers so you can go back and adjust each layer if needed. Make sure, you follow the rules, that the designers sets