Viewing Your Installed Actions by Category in Photoshop Elements 7
by Erin on October 8, 2008
Thanks to the very detailed work of Foulwater at Flickr, here is a method for categorizing the actions you have installed in Photoshop Elements 7.
Categorizing Actions in Photoshop Elements 7
Open a text editor like Notepad or Word. You need to be able to save a file as an XML in this editor. I use Notepad, which can be found on my Vista computer by going to Start/All Programs/Accessories. Note: when I Save As in Notepad, there is no option to save as an XML. Instead, in the Save as Type field, I select All Files. Then, in the File Name field, I enter FileName.metadata.xml. That’s all it takes. Microsoft Word actually has the option to Save As Word XML Document. So why do I use Notepad? I’m not sure, everyone seems to do it! Perhaps more people can use it, so that you can share these files with folks who don’t have Word
Click on this link and copy the contents into your text editor.
action-categorymetadata
Replace the two occurrences of “Action Name” with the name of your action. This must be exactly the same as the name of the action file ending in .ATN, without the .ATN suffix. Note that the first time you type the name of the action, it cannot have spaces in it. The second time, it should be spaced the same as the ATN file.
Replace the two occurrences of “Category Name” with the name you want your category to be. This could be My Actions, Grant’s Tools, Coffeeshop Actions – whatever you want. The same spacing rules apply here. There should be no spaces in the first occurrences, and spacing in the second should match the name of the action.
Make sure that there are not spaces at the beginning of any line of text. Each line should begin with a <, unless the line has wrapped from the previous line. This step seemed to make a difference for me between my Categories working and not working – I’m not sure why. This is my first XML experience!
Go to File/Save As. In the File Name field, type the name of the action. Again, this must be exactly the same as the name of the .ATN file, except that the suffix should be .metadata.XML. Go ahead and type the whole thing: Action Name.metadata.xml
In the Save as Type field, select XML if possible, or All Files or something similar if not. Save this file in the installation path for your actions. See these instructions for help with that if you need it. If you haven’t already installed your actions, at this point you can move the ATN, PGN and the metadata.XML files all together to the appropriate folder.
This was a tricky process for me! Please let me know whether or not it works for you. I’ll help if I can. Thank you.
Note on Using Action Categories in Photoshop Elements 7 Guided Edit
If you access your actions through the Guided Edit action players in PSE 7, these categories won’t work. See this post for more info.<–>
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Hi! I just wanted to point out that the XML file should use a naming schema of: FILENAME.metadata.xml
Take care.
Troy a.k.a. foulwater
Thanks for pointing that out, Troy! I edited the above to reflect the proper name format. And thanks for doing the XML work in the first place!
I have already learned a lot-thank you but I am really really new with photoshop elements and now learned how to install the download into my photoshop from your tutorial but now when I click on the effect and push apply it says that once it is finished you will see no changes until you make adjustments. I can see all of the steps that have been done to my history but nothing happens to my picture. I will keep trying but if you know the answer I would love it-thanks, Michelle
I went back and realized I wasn’t done reading
I had only done the download tutorial not the teeth whitening, etc..
Thank you for the wonderful information. Right now I have the free trial of PSE 8. I have done exactly as told in the above instructions, but I still don’t have categories for my new actions. Do the categories work only if you have the full version of PSE 8?
Hi Mary!
The process for PSE 8 is a bit different from PSE7. I plan on releasing a categories tutorial this week or the next to cover PSE8.