Photoshop Elements and actions.  It takes forever for us to install them, and once they’re installed, we have to scroll through a long list of stuff in Photo Effects in order to find them.

You have to scroll forever unless you know the magic trick for organizing your actions into menu categories, that is.  These menu items allow you to filter out the actions you’re looking for quickly.  To assign a menu category to an action, you just need an XML file for each action.  Your menu will look something like this after you customize it:

If you purchase actions, you’ll find that the better action makers, like MCP Actions (of course!) provide these XML files for you.  You can also make them yourself.

You can organize the actions however you’d like.  You can have one menu group for your Favorites, another for all the actions from a specific maker, and another for all your portrait actions, for instance.

Your XML file will look something like this (click for a larger view):

Please note:  the image above is just a screenshot.  See below for instructions on downloading the usable file.

• To use this template, you will need to open it in some sort of a text editor.  On my Mac, I use TextEdit.  On my PC, I use Notepad.  Your computer probably has one of these installed, even if you’ve never used it.  (For best results, don’t use Word, Wordpad or anything similar.)
•  Inside the XML, you will need to replace some of my text with two pieces of information – the action name, and the menu item (or action set) name.
• The action name in the XML needs to be EXACTLY the same as the name of the action that you installed.  That is, it needs to be exactly the same as the name of the action file you pasted into the photo effects folder when you installed your action – this file ends in “.ATN”.  If the file name is “Turn My Photo Blue.ATN”, your action name is “Turn My Photo Blue”.
• You will need to type the action name twice.  Replace my text that says “ACTIONNAMENOSPACES” with your action name.  You guessed it – don’t type any spaces.  Your action capitalization and punctuation should be exactly the same as the name of the action file.
• Next, replace my “Action Name With Spaces” with your action name, spaced as it is in the name of the ATN file.
• The next piece of information you will need to enter into this XML file is the action set name.  This can be “Favorites,” “Actions from Joe Blow the Action Maker” or “Actions for Portrait Retouching.”  Or anything else you’d like.  This is the text that will appear in your drop down menu in the Photo Effects Panel inside of Elements.
• Again, you’ll need to enter this action set name twice – once with spaces, once without.
• When you save the XML file, save it like this:  Name.metadata.xml.  Again, the name must be the same exact name as the name of the action file (with spaces).  And, you’ll probably need to type in the entire name – the .xml extension doesn’t usually appear for you, like it would if saving a more common type of file.
• When saving, also make sure that the file format is set to All Files.

Now, these XML files can be persnickety.  If you have any typos, the menu items won’t work.  Don’t add or subtract anything from the template I provided – just replace the text that needs to be replaced.

To install them, copy and paste them into that same Photo Effects folder where you installed the actions.  You can use the installation instructions here, if you need a refresher.  You can paste all your new XMLs at one time (and you will need one for each action you wish to categorize.)

And yes, unfortunately you will have to reset the cursed mediadatabase.  The easiest way?  Close Elements and navigate to mediadatabase using the installation instructions.  When you find it, just delete it (and any old versions of it).  Don’t worry about renaming it.  Reopen Elements.  And let it process.  Remember that this part can take anywhere from 2 minutes to 20 minutes.  Don’t touch PSE until your cursor returns to normal.

Once installed, go to the Photo Effects palette inside PSE and pull down the drop down menu that usually says “Show All.”  If you did everything right, you can select your new action categories and get to editing!

How to Download This Free XML File:

Newsletter subscribers, return to your email newsletter from March 2, 2012,  and look at the bottom left corner under this blue and orange watermark.  Your download link will be there.

If you don’t subscribe to the newsletter, subscribe here.  After confirming your subscription, you will receive an email with links to my free actions as well as this download.

If you subscribe to the newsletter but missed the link, unsubscribe and then resubscribe.

One more thing.  I know some of you are going to try this and post back here saying it won’t work.  Go back to that persnickety part above.  This is something I just can’t help you with – you’ll have to proofread very carefully. Have fun organizing those actions!

MCP has just released a new set of free actions for Photoshop Elements!

If you are tired of the photos that you upload to Facebook looking blurry and fuzzy, this is the set for you.

MCP’s Facebook Fix contains  13 actions that will do all this for your images:

• Size single images just right for Facebook
• Create diptychs, with or without the words “Before” and “After” written on them
• Change the color of the diptych frames
• Sharpen your images, including just the Afters if that’s want you want
• Add your logo
• Add copyright symbols and warnings

Download Facebook Fix here from MCP Actions.  Don’t forget to check out the instructions for installation that come with your download, if you need help with that.

This set will be perfect for all those family Thanksgiving photos that you want to share!  Enjoy.

Mini Fusion, MCP’s latest free action for Photoshop Elements, has gotten so many raves that it’s worthy of a tutorial showing just what this freebie is capable of.  Actions, as we all know, sometimes make a huge and instant impact on a photo, and other times they need tweaking.  The beauty of Mini Fusion is that is provides instant results, and you can take it many more directions with just a bit of input.

Here’s my creation:

And here’s where it started:

This is what my layers palette looked like after I finished my edits:

(You can click on the image above to get a bigger view.)

Whoa.  That’s a lot of layers, right?  Well, Mini Fusion created them all for me, except for the vignette layer.  I didn’t have to remember which layers to add, which settings to apply to those layers, or which order to do it all it. The entire edit took me a total of maybe 5 minutes start to finish.

Here’s what I did to tweak the action.

1. Ran the action by double clicking on the Mini Fusion icon in the Effects Palette
2. Quickly turned each layer off and on by clicking on its eyeball to evaluate the layer’s effect and whether it needed to be adjusted.
3. Wanted to increase overall exposure a bit, so I turned the opacity of Increase Opacity to Brighten to 20%.
4. Played with the opacity of the Adjust Mini Fusion layer.  This layer controls all of the layers grouped with it (Clarity through More Contrast).  I decided that the default was good and didn’t change the opacity.
5. Played with the color tone layers.  I liked On Cloud Nine at 29% and Cool Blue Sea at 18%.  I didn’t like Pink Cadillac on this image so I initially left it turned off.
6. Decided that the dress was too bright was was drawing too much attention.  I set the opacity of Increase Opacity to Darken to 54%.  This is the top of the two Increase Opacity layers – you can’t see the entire name of the layer unless you hover your cursor over it from within Elements.  Typed control (command)+i to invert the layer mask and hide the darkening effect, then painted it back in with a white brush only over the dress.  You can see that in the layer mask for this layer.
7. The pink on the dress was still too bright, so I went to the Saturate layer and painted with a black brush set to 50% opacity over the dress only.  This cut the saturation pop in half over the dress, but left it at 100% over the rest of the image (including the peacock).
8. Wanted to add more emphasis to those sweet little lips, so I turned the Pink Cadillac layer on and upped its opacity to 66%.  Typed control (command) + i to hide the pink effect from everywhere, and used a white brush to paint it back in over just the lips.  Who knew Mini Fusion had built in lipstick?
9. Experimented with one last thing.  Sometimes actions that have color twists adversely change the eyes.  Even if you want a yellow color tone in your image, you don’t necessarily want the whites of eyes to be yellow, right?  So, on the Adjust Tone Layers layer, I masked out the eyes at various opacities and determined that the masking out was not necessary for this image.  If it had been closer up with more eye detail showing, I probably would have kept the mask.  That is the beauty of the two control layers in this action – Adjust Tone Layers allows you to control the strength (opacity) and masks of all three color layers at once.  And Adjust Mini Fusion does the same for all the layers from Clarity to More Contrast.
10. Added the Subtle Vignette.
11. Used the  MCP Finish It action set to resize for the web, sharpen and watermark.

So that’s Mini-Fusion.  It took me way longer to write this tutorial than it did to edit the image, so don’t let its length scare you.   You can download your own free Mini Fusion here, or purchase the entire Fusion set (55 + actions) here.

2 new actions for Photoshop Elements are waiting for you to download!

The first is MCP’s latest freebie for Elements – Touch of Light/Touch of Darkness.  It’s similar to Dodge and Burn, but easier and more effective.  This action will pull a face out of the shadows or calm down a bright spot.

And the 2nd new action?  MCP’s Complete Workflow is now available for Photoshop Elements!

This was a tough conversion for me because I had to create an Elements workaround for a intense Lab mode color pop.  It took countless attempts before finding a version that Jodi and I were both happy with.  I think you will like the results!

MCP’s Complete Workflow contains 8 actions, including 5 end-to-end workflow actions.  Everything you need to edit an image from start to finish is included in these workflows, plus 3 different levels of color pop, a black and white with optional tints, and a great vintage action.

In addition to the workflow actions, there are 3 helper actions to correct exposure.  Bring detail out of the shadows, make your darks darker and richer, or rein in those out-of-control highlights.

Each action has adjustable layers and layer masks to give you complete control.  For instance, I masked out the vintage effect on the eyes and lips of the shot below with a low opacity brush to add a little color back.

I prepared these images for posting on the internet using MCP’s Finish It for Photoshop Elements to resize, frame, add text area and watermark.  The vignettes in the above screen shots were added after running MCP’s Complete Workflow.

The Complete Workflow is compatible with PSE 5, 6, 7 and 8.  Enjoy!

Yes, the Pioneer Woman’s free actions were finally released yesterday!  Most of you know this and already using them happily, so I just want to point out  a few things about the way these actions work.

First off, everything you need to know to install these actions is on this page – it’s info central about installing and running PW’s actions in PSE.

To find the instructions for installing these actions, click here and scroll down until you find the instructions for your operating system and your version of PSE.  (Don’t use the link in the brown box at the top of the page – those instructions aren’t specific to the Pioneer Woman actions.)

You can choose from written or video tutorials.  The written tutorials have troubleshooting tips at the end, plus there is an FAQ doc that answers just about every question you could ask about installing or using these actions.

I have received lots of emails requesting help installing these actions and have seen so many questions posted in forums.  Unfortunately, I just can’t answer each question directly.  Oh, how I wish I had that kind of extra time in my life!

This isn’t the easiest of processes and you do need to follow the instructions to a T.  It is so worth it though! I can say that I have only seen one question (see below) that isn’t addressed somewhere on my Pioneer Woman info page.  Here are a few examples.  More details are available for them on the FAQs and Installation instructions.

• Why are there two thumbnails showing up in my Effects for each action? (Reread the instructions for your version of PSE and your operating system carefully.  You have pasted files into the Photo Effects folder that don’t need to be there.)
• When I try to run an action, I get a message about it not being compatible and/or not having enough RAM. (See the previous issue.  When you have an extra thumbnail, one of them won’t work and will give you this error message.)
• All my actions disappeared when I tried to install these actions. (The actions are still in your Photo Effects folder, but PSE was interrupted while trying to rebuild the MediaDatabase.db3 file.  Return to this file, via the instructions given for your version of PSE and your operating system.  Rename MediaDatabase.db3.  It doesn’t matter what the new name is – you just have to make sure nothing is named MediaDatabase.db3 so that PSE will be cued to created a new database with both your new and your old actions.)
• I don’t know how to download the files to my computer. Ok, this is the one that I can’t help you with.  It depends on your computer type, your browser and your security settings.  If you don’t know how to download to your computer, you really need someone sitting next to you to show you how.

Oh, I really hope you are enjoying these actions!

Photoshop Elements texture tutorials are a dime a dozen these days.  I’m going to add my two cents worth below and detail the specific steps I used on a particular image.  And there is a free action alert at the bottom of this post!

What is the best tutorial you’ve seen for using textures and overlays in PSE? My favorite, as I mentioned last week, is on Patti Brown’s Kaleidoscope website.  Her video tutorials suggested many great ideas to me.

One tip which I will play with every time I use a texture in the future is to free transform the texture layer (control+T) and move it around over the image until you find perfect placement. This is particularly helpful with Patti’s Light Flare collection.

Don’t forget to place your entries in the contest for the entire Kaleidoscope collection.  Entries will be closed at midnight CST on March 17.

Ok, so back to my texture workflow.

I started here, after editing and sharpening:

With this image open in PSE, I used the Place command (File Menu) to bring in textures from Patti’s Collection that I thought might work nicely with this image.  I wasn’t wild about the background of this picture – my main goal in adding a texture was to find something that would add depth and take away the “backyard” feel of the image.

For each new layer that I created, I used Control+T (free transform) to size and position the overlay.  Then, I scrolled through the blending modes to find the mode that got me closest to the result I was looking for.

Next step was to add layer masks and create a quick mask that would look something like the final product.

My layers palette at the end looked like this:

You can see that I turned off Dream Burst and Meadow 3 (by clicking on the eyeballs) because they didn’t give me the look I was going for.

Abstract Edge 1 at the Overlay blend mode and 77% opacity was just about it.  I wanted the effect to be a bit stronger, so I duplicated the layer and changed the blend mode of the duplicate to Soft Light, keeping the 77% opacity.

After refining my layer masks, the image was complete!

FREE ACTION ALERT

MCP has a free action for Photoshop Elements that places a texture for you and shows you what it looks like in all the important blend modes.  Check it out!