Do Not Use Photoshop Actions - Unless

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Photoshop has the excellent capability of running actions, which are nothing more than macros. Search google for "photoshop actions" and you will find thousands of them. Photo sharing sites like Flickr are loaded with images modified with various actions. Don't use them!

Your pictures will look just like everyone else's.


Actions are great time savers and I do use them all the time, but all of the actions I use are written by me. I don't share these with anyone, although I will share the principles behind each action.


A few months ago flower pictures with rippling water was all the rage in the photo magazines and on photo sharing sites. It got to where I would get sick of looking at them. That's what happens when everyone uses the same action to modify a photo. If your picture is beautifully crafted you will not have any need for cheesy mass-produced actions so that is the area to concentrate on. People like creative and original images, not mass-produced junk.


Another action that was wildly popular for a while was the one that made people's eyes look like cheap, store-bought glass eyes. Total  crap.


I do a lot of studio photography and at times find it necessary or just desirable to spruce up a model's eyes. I do this in Photoshop, by hand and not with some cheesy action available all over the net for a few bucks.


If you need a hand improving your images using Photoshop then may I recommend Scott Kelby's excellent books "The Adobe PhotoshopCS3 Book for digital photographers". This link will also take you to the same book written for CS4 and CS2.
I am going to purchase CS5 shortly after it's released and will also buy Scott's book for that version when he publishes it. This series of books will definitely help you improve your pictures without looking like they came out of some mass-production crap factory.
You learn nothing from using someone else's actions and it certainly won't do your self esteem any good either.
Always place creative, original work above everything else.
Thanks for looking and clicking!



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