Time is Money: Batch Edit Photos, Boost Bottom Line

When you are creating a series of product shots for a Web store you will typically find yourself performing the same tasks on every image. After a while, you might ask yourself, "Is there a way to automate this process I'm doing over and over again?" Indeed there is, and the Photoshop tool you use is called an "action." I will show you how to create a Photoshop action and how to save it and use it on a series of photos.

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What is an Action?
An action is a series of steps you use to perform a task that Photoshop records and which you can later play to perform the same steps on another image. For example, if you repeatedly open an image, resize it to 25 percent of its original size, boost its saturation and sharpen it, you can record these steps as an action and replay them on another image or an entire folder of images.

Create an Action
Before creating an action it is important to have a clear idea of exactly what you want to do. Start by opening one image and step through the fixes that you want to perform on all your images so you are clear as to exactly what needs to be done. If necessary, take a note of the various steps.

To record an action, open the image to work on and display the action palette by choosing Window > Actions. From the action palette menu choose New Set so you store your personal actions separate from Photoshop's. Call this group something like Web site Fixes. Now, from the action palette menu, choose New Action and type a name for the action you are creating. In this example ours will resize, boost saturation and sharpen an image we will call it resize-saturation-sharpen. Click Record.

Some of the commands that you will use are to be found on the action palette menu.

(Click for larger image.)

From now on Photoshop records every step you perform so step through the process of fixing the image. For example, we chose Image > Image Size and set the Width to 25 percent ensuring that the Constrain Proportions checkbox was selected and that the Resample Image option was set to Bicubic Sharper because the image is being reduced. Click Ok. We then chose Image > Adjust > Hue/Saturation and adjusted the saturation up +5 and then sharpened the image by choosing Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask and set the Radius to 1.5, the Threshold to 5 and the Amount to 100.

You can also save the image if desired, however if you do, take care not to change the image filename. Note that you can change its format or save location. If you change the image filename in the action, all your files will be saved with the same name and each new file will overwrite the older one. For this reason, it is best, when you're beginning with actions, not to record the Save step.

When you have finished the steps, click the Stop Playing/Recording button at the foot of the actions palette to stop the recording process.

(Continue to Page 2 for Steps on Completing Actions and Doing Batches)