Photoshop Elements’ Action Player has come up on this blog before.
A brief summary of the Action Player: You access it through PSE’s Guided Edit and it is only available in PSE 7 and 8. It’s much easier to install actions into it than “the old-fashioned” way because you don’t have to reset MediaDatabase.db3. But many actions will not run here. And, you have to move to the Guided Edit to run these actions and then return to the Full Edit to modify their effects.
The alternative to the Action Player is the tried-and-true Effects Palette. In spite of the difficulties in installing actions into the Full Edit’s Effects Palette, I still prefer to access my actions from there. Why? It saves quite a few mouse clicks for one. I am always in Full Edit, so it takes at least 4 clicks to find the action you want in the Action Player. Also, I almost never run an action and leave it as is. So there are another couple of clicks to return to the Full Edit for adjusting.
As more and more action creators have become aware of the Action Player, many are designing their actions to work in it. Florabella is one of them – her actions are beautiful.
But guess what? Some of these actions will not work in the Effects Palette in Full Edit. So now, we have the following 3 categories of actions out there:
- They can work in the Effects Palette only
- They can work in the Action Player only
- The work in both
How do you know which to use?
- First off, check the recommendations of the action maker. If the creator does not indicate how to install them, use the following as clues.
- The Effects Palette method can have up to 3 files per action:
- An ATN file to run it
- A PNG or PSD file to create a thumbnail image
- An XML file to group the actions on the menu
- Each file will have the same name except for the extension (ATN, PNG, PSD, XML)
- If your action comes with more than one type of file per action, install in it the Effects Palette.
- If your action only has one file, and the creator indicated that the one file contains more than one action, install it in the Action Player.
- If your action needs to be installed in the Effects Palette and does not have a thumbnail file, you will see a black box instead of a thumbnail.
Instructions for Installing Actions
Need more help?
All the info you need is available for free on this website. But if you’re having issues, let me install the actions for you.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Ohhhhhhhhhh THANK you so much!!! I had downloaded a freebie action from FB and as usual, I loaded it in the effects palette. When I tried it, it only did one step, then stopped, or didn’t work altogether. I found this today and “ding” the light went on. After loading them in the Action Player, I tried them out and “voila!” they actually did work! I am SO stoked right now. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Muah!