If you're like me and you use Photshop on a daily basis you start to notice that you use a lot of the same commands over and over again. Don't you wish you could somehow find a single keystroke that would take care of all that tedious stuff. Well guess what. Photoshop already beat you to it ... you just never knew it was there. It's called an action and here's how it works.
The program has a function called actions which is set up to record a series of commands and then allow you to use that series of commands with just a single key. "What ??? Could this be true?...Wait, I still don't get it"... Okay, okay let me explain.
Let's say your like me, witty, handsome and working in Photoshop. You open a doc and import your scan. The scan needs to:
A) Be converted to grayscale.
B) Be resized to 150 dpi
C) And be resized to fit an 8X10 format.
For this particular project I will have to do this routine 100 times for each new scan... YIKES ! Wouldn't it be great if I could hit one key that would take care of all those funtions automatically.
You can, and that's where actions come in. Here's how:
1) With your new document open, go to the window pull down menue and find "show actions".
2) In the actions window, create a new action (by clicking on the arrow in the upper right hand corner of the dialog box )
3) A new dialog box will appear. Now name your action. I'll name mine "Bob is handsome".
4) Find the function key box and select a function key. I will select F1
5) If you'd like to color code your action I suppose that would be okay....I'll wait ...done? Good let's move on
6) Now hit record. You'll notice that the dialog box disappears and your back to the main interface.There should be a little red button at the bottom... this means you are now recording.
7) Now complete your commands as you normally would. So in my case I will...
A) Convert my art to grayscale.
B) Resize my doc to 150 dpi
C) Resize it to fit an 8X10 format
8) Once you have completed all your commands go to the bottom of the actions dialog box and find the little black square (next to the red record dot) and click it. That will stop it from recording and you're done.
To test it out open a crisp fresh scan and hit your F1 button now sit back and watch it go. Ah yes, now that's living large. Congratulations my friend and remember the satisfaction and joy you feel at this moment. Times like this don't come around to often. You might even want to take a picture.
Later as you become an expert you can share this skill with your Photoshop buddies. They will be astonished and instantly make you their new leader. Perhaps they will pass the knowledge onto their buddies like I am doing for you now and perhaps the world will be just a little better for us all.
