Creating Actions; Guidelines For Recording Actions; Record An Action - Adobe Photoshop CS6 User Manual

Creating actions

Guidelines for recording actions

Record an action

Record a path
Insert a stop
Change settings when playing an action
Exclude commands from an action
Insert a non-recordable menu command
Edit and rerecord actions
Guidelines for recording actions
Keep in mind the following guidelines when recording actions:
You can record most—but not all—commands in an action.
You can record operations that you perform with the Marquee, Move, Polygon, Lasso, Magic Wand, Crop, Slice, Magic Eraser, Gradient,
Paint Bucket, Type, Shape, Notes, Eyedropper, and Color Sampler tools—as well as those that you perform in the History, Swatches, Color,
Paths, Channels, Layers, Styles, and Actions panels.
Results depend on file and program setting variables, such as the active layer and the foreground color. For example, a 3-pixel Gaussian blur
won't create the same effect on a 72-ppi file as on a 144-ppi file. Nor will Color Balance work on a grayscale file.
When you record actions that include specifying settings in dialog boxes and panels, the action will reflect the settings in effect at the time of
the recording. If you change a setting in a dialog box or panel while recording an action, the changed value is recorded.
Note: Most dialog boxes retain the settings specified at the previous use. Check carefully that those are the values you want to record.
Modal operations and tools—as well as tools that record position—use the units currently specified for the ruler. A modal operation or tool is
one that requires you to press Enter or Return to apply its effect, such as transforming or cropping. Tools that record position include the
Marquee, Slice, Gradient, Magic Wand, Lasso, Shape, Path, Eyedropper, and Notes tools.
If you record an action that will be played on files of different sizes, set the ruler units to percentages. As a result, the action will always
play back in the same relative position in the image.
You can record the Play command listed on the Actions panel menu to cause one action to play another.
Record an action
When you create a new action, the commands and tools you use are added to the action until you stop recording.
To guard against mistakes, work in a copy: at the beginning of the action before applying other commands, record the File > Save A Copy
command (Illustrator) or record the File > Save As command and select As A Copy (Photoshop). Alternatively, in Photoshop you can click the
New Snapshot button on the History panel to make a snapshot of the image before recording the action.
1. Open a file.
2. In the Actions panel, click the Create New Action button
3. Enter an action name, select an action set, and set additional options:
Function Key Assigns a keyboard shortcut to the action. You can choose any combination of a function key, the Ctrl key (Windows) or
Command key (Mac OS), and the Shift key (for example, Ctrl+Shift+F3), with these exceptions: In Windows, you cannot use the F1 key, nor
can you use F4 or F6 with the Ctrl key.
Note: If you assign an action the same shortcut that is used for a command, the shortcut will apply the action rather than the command.
Color Assigns a color for display in Button mode.
4. Click Begin Recording. The Begin Recording button in the Actions panel turns red
Important: When recording the Save As command, do not change the filename. If you enter a new filename, that new name is recorded
and used each time you run the action. Before saving, if you navigate to a different folder, you can specify a different location without having
to specify a filename.
5. Perform the operations and commands you want to record.
Not all tasks in actions can be recorded directly; however, you can insert most nonrecordable tasks using commands in the Actions panel
menu.
6. To stop recording, either click the Stop Playing/Recording button, or choose Stop Recording from the Actions panel menu. (In Photoshop,
, or choose New Action from the Actions panel menu.
.
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