Photoshop Tutorial FUSION: Creating Actions+ Photo Borders and Watermarks/Signatures...
Learn: What an action is, how to create your own action, Adding borders to photos, Adding Watermark/Signature to photos.
Anytime you're going to be posting your pictures on the internet its a good idea to add your name/watermark/copyright to help deter people from stealing them and its a good form of "advertising" for yourself/website. And anyone who has processed photos for web-use knows how redundant it can get, thankfully Photoshop has a feature to help automate some of your everyday routines. This feature is called ACTIONS.
One important thing to remember when creating a new action is that you literally have to do things STEP-BY-STEP, and be very tedious in adjusting certain parameters to ensure that Photoshop knows the EXACT task you are trying to perform. This concept will make more sense if you play your action later on and it behaves strangley
Your Action's palette is usually close to or attached to your History Pallette(To make active: Window>Actions).
Open up the photo you will add a border/signature to. Make sure it has been properly sized.
On your Actions Pallette, create a NEW SET(click folder icon), name it accordingly(My Watermarks in this case):
New Set active:
Within your new set, create a NEW ACTION:
name it accordingly, click RECORD:
From this point forward, every task you perform within photoshop will be recorded. Keep this in mind while creating any new action.
Lets start off by stroking the picture to give it a small border, hit Command-A(CTRL-A on PC), or click Select>All. Do NOT use the marquee tool to select the picture. Now go to EDIT > Stroke... Type in 3 for the size, position should be INSIDE, and select the color you want to use - Black works best in most cases. click ok. IMPORTANT: Even if the color you want to use is already selected when the dialouge box first opens, you must RESELECT that color before continuing.
With your picture selected go to Image > Canvas Size. Click the Box next to the word Relative and enter the desired canvas extension. I would reccomend anything between 20px-50px but use your best judgment. Ensure that both value are the same unless you want a mis-proportioned border. Dont Click OK just yet, click on the drop down menu that Says "canvas extension color", CHOOSE A COLOR instead of 'Foreground' or 'Background' color(if you choose foreground or background your canvas extension color will be based on whatever colors are currently active in your Bg/FG color palettes. Click OK.
Lets add a final border....Now make your entire image(including your new white canvas extension) active, Command-A or Select > All, then go to EDIT > Stroke, Size 5px is usually good and remember to select your color even if the dialouge box opens up with the color you want already active. Click OK.
Now Deselect the image, Command-D(CTRL-D on pc) or Select > Deselect.
Click on your Type tool or press T on your keyboard. Adjust the type settings! Make sure you select each parameter and change EACH one even if its already how you want it. Change: Font, Size and Color. Click on the image with your type tool active and enter the desired text(name, website, © info, email, etc.) Once you've add your type go to your actions pallette and click on the STOP recording button.(You will usually need to reposition the text layer for each picture but thats easy to do). If you decide later on that you dont want certain instances in your action set you can deselect/delete them and they will not be performed.
TO PLAY YOUR NEW ACTION: Open up your image, go to your Actions palette, select your desired ACTION(not the folder!), and click PLAY.
Thats it! You've created an action that will save you lots of time. I have a handful of borders and watermarks that I use and am constantly changing them up. This, often-overlooked , feature in Photoshop can streamline your workflow and improve overall effeciency.
It will probably take a few attempts to get the whole idea of how an action works down but once you've got it figured out you can create actions for everything from borders to actual photo enhancements. Next PS tutorial will be creating an action to CORRECTLY re-size photos for the web and Batch Processing... keep an eye out for those.
-Tre
Anytime you're going to be posting your pictures on the internet its a good idea to add your name/watermark/copyright to help deter people from stealing them and its a good form of "advertising" for yourself/website. And anyone who has processed photos for web-use knows how redundant it can get, thankfully Photoshop has a feature to help automate some of your everyday routines. This feature is called ACTIONS.
One important thing to remember when creating a new action is that you literally have to do things STEP-BY-STEP, and be very tedious in adjusting certain parameters to ensure that Photoshop knows the EXACT task you are trying to perform. This concept will make more sense if you play your action later on and it behaves strangley
Your Action's palette is usually close to or attached to your History Pallette(To make active: Window>Actions).
Open up the photo you will add a border/signature to. Make sure it has been properly sized.
On your Actions Pallette, create a NEW SET(click folder icon), name it accordingly(My Watermarks in this case):
New Set active:Within your new set, create a NEW ACTION:
name it accordingly, click RECORD:
From this point forward, every task you perform within photoshop will be recorded. Keep this in mind while creating any new action.
Lets start off by stroking the picture to give it a small border, hit Command-A(CTRL-A on PC), or click Select>All. Do NOT use the marquee tool to select the picture. Now go to EDIT > Stroke... Type in 3 for the size, position should be INSIDE, and select the color you want to use - Black works best in most cases. click ok. IMPORTANT: Even if the color you want to use is already selected when the dialouge box first opens, you must RESELECT that color before continuing.
With your picture selected go to Image > Canvas Size. Click the Box next to the word Relative and enter the desired canvas extension. I would reccomend anything between 20px-50px but use your best judgment. Ensure that both value are the same unless you want a mis-proportioned border. Dont Click OK just yet, click on the drop down menu that Says "canvas extension color", CHOOSE A COLOR instead of 'Foreground' or 'Background' color(if you choose foreground or background your canvas extension color will be based on whatever colors are currently active in your Bg/FG color palettes. Click OK.
Lets add a final border....Now make your entire image(including your new white canvas extension) active, Command-A or Select > All, then go to EDIT > Stroke, Size 5px is usually good and remember to select your color even if the dialouge box opens up with the color you want already active. Click OK.
Now Deselect the image, Command-D(CTRL-D on pc) or Select > Deselect.
Click on your Type tool or press T on your keyboard. Adjust the type settings! Make sure you select each parameter and change EACH one even if its already how you want it. Change: Font, Size and Color. Click on the image with your type tool active and enter the desired text(name, website, © info, email, etc.) Once you've add your type go to your actions pallette and click on the STOP recording button.(You will usually need to reposition the text layer for each picture but thats easy to do). If you decide later on that you dont want certain instances in your action set you can deselect/delete them and they will not be performed.
TO PLAY YOUR NEW ACTION: Open up your image, go to your Actions palette, select your desired ACTION(not the folder!), and click PLAY.
Thats it! You've created an action that will save you lots of time. I have a handful of borders and watermarks that I use and am constantly changing them up. This, often-overlooked , feature in Photoshop can streamline your workflow and improve overall effeciency.
It will probably take a few attempts to get the whole idea of how an action works down but once you've got it figured out you can create actions for everything from borders to actual photo enhancements. Next PS tutorial will be creating an action to CORRECTLY re-size photos for the web and Batch Processing... keep an eye out for those.
-Tre
posted by Trevor Gill | 5:36 PM
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