DECEMBER 06, 2002
Weekly Download: Color and Light 1
Actions for producing lighting effects and manipulating color
 by David Nagel
Page 2 of 2

Downloading, installing and using the actions
For once, I'm going to make the PC users out there happy: I'm not going to compress this action set into a Stuffit archive. So all you have to do is click the link at the end of this article to download and use the file.[an error occurred while processing this directive]To install the action set, place the file called NagelSeries2Actions.atn in your action presets folder (Adobe Photoshop 7/Presets/Photoshop Actions). Relaunch Photoshop, and you should see the set in the flyaway menu in your Actions palette.



If not, choose "Load Actions" from the flyaway menu and hunt for the action set on your hard drive. Once you've installed the actions, you'll see them in your Actions palette for all future documents. To run an action, simply click it once and then hit the Play button.



NOTE: Be sure to save your work before running any actions, as you might not have enough history states set in your preferences to be able to undo the action once it's run. All of these actions in this set will create a new layer for the effects, making them non-destructive, but just save your work anyway to be safe.

To use this set of actions, simply locate the one you want to try in your Actions palette, and click the Play button at the bottom of the palette.

  • Some of these effects ask you to determine the positioning of your radial blur, particularly the lighting effects, since Actions do not record the specific position of this plugin. (The plugin always uses the last-used setting for position, which may not be appropriate for your image.)
  • For the Super Saturate action, simply choose your saturation level in the Hue/Saturation dialog box that pops up. Don't worry about artifacts in the preview. These will be eliminated or dramatically reduced by the time the action finishes.
  • And finally, for the Reduce Redeye action, make sure you select the area of the redeye you want to reduce before applying this effect. Otherwise the reds in your entire image will be desaturated.

All set? Good. You can download the NagelSeries2Actions here: http://images.digitalmedianet.com/2002/12_dec/features/download9021206/NagelSeries2Actions.atn. Or, if you'd prefer, here's a version in a Stuffit archive: http://images.digitalmedianet.com/2002/12_dec/features/download9021206/NagelSeries2Actions.atn.sit.

If you have any questions, be sure to visit me in the Adobe Photoshop forum listed below. And remember to save your work first! I don't want any e-mails complaining that one of these actions ruined your work!

Contact the author: Dave Nagel is the producer of Creative Mac and Digital Media Designer; host of several World Wide User Groups, including Synthetik Studio Artist, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, Adobe LiveMotion, Creative Mac and Digital Media Designer; and executive producer of the Digital Media Net family of publications. You can reach him at dnagel@digitalmedianet.com.

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