I took 100s of photos when we were at the cottage in July and have yet to properly sift thru and edit them...
for "get pushed" this week, @slang challenged me to go find a photo i want to use, edit and post. And with the editing "do something [I] haven't done or experimented with yet.....learn something new"...
so... this was my first time trying out "actions" of any sort... took me forever to figure out the download and install instructions, but eventually got it sorted...
the above photo was processed with a free trial action from Paint the Moon called, i think, "sea delight" (the icon says "urban delight" but the layer label was "sea delight")...
I am a bit ambivalent about it - it feels kind of washed out to me (likely more a fault of the original photo than the action)... the trial thingy came with 3 actions (effects? not sure what they are called) and i tried all three out on a couple photos - liked this one the best so far...
i need some more actions to try out so if you've got any recommendations for free ones, bring 'em on!
My apologies for continuing to be hugely behind in viewing your photos and commenting back... i have so much to do these days and so little time... and i'm flat out exhausted this week... Might have to wait until the weekend i'm afraid :(
Are you using lightroom? I just watched a tutorial on the weekend that was comparing LR and PS...I like the ease of LR, but I've only worked in PS. That being said, I think I would adjust the original to add more contrast and saturation. I like to "up" my "blacks" then brighten a bit to get the exposure right. I would then try the actions. I know the ones that I've downloaded have done bad, bad things to many of my shots. I think you have to match the action to the colors and exposure of the shot. I haven't found any actions to rave about yet. What I DO love right now is Nik Color Efex Pro. There's some great recipes in there and they are much easier to add and delete than a whole action list. ...if any of that makes any sense at all...
Interesting vintage effect.
I've looked at a few actions, usually to see what it is they are doing, but then never bother to use them again.
Lightroom presets on the other hand... I have lots of those & find them incredibly useful starting points.
This an insightful conversation, because I've heard people reference such things but had no clear idea what they did. Hmm ... I agree with the others that it's a big washed out, but it does give it a vintage feel, so it really depends on what you were going for.
"Actions." This is something defined for a one click makeover, is that right? Alex @aburkill mentioned these to me as something lazy people use for their WWYD submissions, and then don't even credit the one-click "action."
I don't know what you were trying to achieve. Unless you were looking for this washed out or faded effect. WWID? Open it in Photoshop, go to curves, give yourself a real white and a real black then up a point at about 190 input, and down a little about about a 90 input, you'll get what Ben Long (Complete Digital Photography P390 and following) calls a "classic" contrast enhancer curve for a more vibrant task.
This could be made an "action" I guess, but the exact points and new settings would have to be done on a case basis.
The shot itself is fun, but I think it would be much stronger as I suggested.
I don't have any problem with people using actions -- they are simply automating a Photoshop process. I use Tony Kuyper's luminosity mask actions for some of my shots, although they don't actually alter the photo, they just create masks that are very tedious to create by hand.
And anyone who puts the signature or watermark on each of their images and who hasn't created an action to do it is definitely wasting time!
I do think taking credit for something that someone else's action has done is a bit questionable -- I have no problem with using them, but if you then start accepting praise from others about how amazing your Photoshop work is without mentioning it and when that's all you did, it seems a bit wrong. But hey, there's nothing illegal about it. And it's a fine line -- what's the difference between using someone's action and following someone's tutorial?
The WWYD shots that put me a bit 'on edge' aren't so much from Photoshop actions but from sites like this, which take your photo and put it in an entirely different scene: http://www.photofunia.com/
But again, I neither run nor enter the competitions, so it's not my place to complain :)
@cmc1200 what you're saying does make sense Caryn... i use nik silver efex and love it... i start with a preset, but i've started to gain an understanding about how to use the sliders and others buttons and such to vary the effects to get to something i like... i can also tweak here and there in LR and PSE - and would love to learn more about how to do that... just haven't had the time - and i think i really need an in person class - not just a book or video...
@frankhymus@abirkill to be honest, the reason i never bothered with actions before now is for the simple reason that i like understanding what i am doing and having some control over it... snapseed actions, for example, are just a game in my mind... you push a button, get the effect, and move on... not a lot of room for fiddling... fun on the iPhone camera, but othwerise kinda gimmicky... i do lurve the "drama" choice on snapseed... but what i really want to know is what i would need to do on my own in PSE to get that effect so that i could take control of it....
the "paint the moon" actions are more transparent... you can see all the layer masks, and if you know what you are doing you can fiddle with them to your hearts content... i haven't a clue how those things work in PSE so doesn't do me much good...
in the end, i only started down this path because of the "get pushed" challenge :D
If I don't know where I want to go with a shot, I often just scroll down the presets in LR and watch them effect in the Navigator window until I see something that interests me & I go have a play. Quite often I end up not using the preset itself because I go into PSE, but they give me a direction and an idea of what might work & what won't.
I intitally thought, 'isn't it a bit cold in your neck of the woods now?" haha ... nice shot, interesting to read the thread ... answered & poised a few questions for me (:
I've looked at a few actions, usually to see what it is they are doing, but then never bother to use them again.
Lightroom presets on the other hand... I have lots of those & find them incredibly useful starting points.
I don't know what you were trying to achieve. Unless you were looking for this washed out or faded effect. WWID? Open it in Photoshop, go to curves, give yourself a real white and a real black then up a point at about 190 input, and down a little about about a 90 input, you'll get what Ben Long (Complete Digital Photography P390 and following) calls a "classic" contrast enhancer curve for a more vibrant task.
This could be made an "action" I guess, but the exact points and new settings would have to be done on a case basis.
The shot itself is fun, but I think it would be much stronger as I suggested.
Loving Photoshop!
I don't have any problem with people using actions -- they are simply automating a Photoshop process. I use Tony Kuyper's luminosity mask actions for some of my shots, although they don't actually alter the photo, they just create masks that are very tedious to create by hand.
And anyone who puts the signature or watermark on each of their images and who hasn't created an action to do it is definitely wasting time!
I do think taking credit for something that someone else's action has done is a bit questionable -- I have no problem with using them, but if you then start accepting praise from others about how amazing your Photoshop work is without mentioning it and when that's all you did, it seems a bit wrong. But hey, there's nothing illegal about it. And it's a fine line -- what's the difference between using someone's action and following someone's tutorial?
The WWYD shots that put me a bit 'on edge' aren't so much from Photoshop actions but from sites like this, which take your photo and put it in an entirely different scene:
http://www.photofunia.com/
But again, I neither run nor enter the competitions, so it's not my place to complain :)
the "paint the moon" actions are more transparent... you can see all the layer masks, and if you know what you are doing you can fiddle with them to your hearts content... i haven't a clue how those things work in PSE so doesn't do me much good...
in the end, i only started down this path because of the "get pushed" challenge :D
I sometimes use the ones which came with Lightroom (I have LR3), but got most of the others from here: http://www.presetsheaven.com/
My fav preset is one called Moonlit - and that's in a free set by Bryan Wheeler on Adobe Exchange: http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm?event=extensionDetail&extid=1651019
If I don't know where I want to go with a shot, I often just scroll down the presets in LR and watch them effect in the Navigator window until I see something that interests me & I go have a play. Quite often I end up not using the preset itself because I go into PSE, but they give me a direction and an idea of what might work & what won't.