Saving and Sharing Your Actions

It wasn't long after I started creating actions that I realized I wanted to be able to do a couple of things. First, I had a computer at home and a computer at work and I wanted to be able to use my actions on both of them, without re-creating them from scratch. Next, I had friends and co-workers that wanted to use the same actions, so I quickly found the advantages of being able to save and load actions.

Step One

For this example, let's save the Sharpen Photos action that we created back in the previous two tutorials. Here's the problem when saving actions, though. Actions need to be saved in a set. You can't save actions individually. Well, you can but they still must be in a seteven if it's only one action. To create a set for our Sharpen Photos action, click the Create New Set icon (it looks like a little folder) at the bottom of the Actions palette. In the New Set dialog, name the set Sharpen Photos, and click OK. You'll see a new folder (set) appear in the Actions palette.

Step Two

Drag the Sharpen Photos action into the set by clicking on it and dragging it on top of the newly created set (with the folder icon). This enables us to save the action.

Turbo Boost

If you want to save just one action separately, don't forget that it still needs to be in a set. If this happens, try naming the set the same as the action to make it easier to find.

Step Three

Click once on the Sharpen Photos set. Then click the small, right-facing triangle at the top right of the Actions palette. From the palette's flyout menu, choose Save Actions, and the Save dialog will appear.

Step Four

In the Save dialog, choose a location for the action. It's usually best to place them into the Photoshop Actions folder (in Adobe Photoshop CS2's Presets folder) with the other actions, but you can choose somewhere else if you'd like. Then click the Save button, and the action will be saved.

Turbo Boost

Save your actions in Photoshop CS2's Photoshop Actions folder, in the Presets folder, and they'll appear in your Actions palette's flyout menu so you can quickly load them the next time you restart Photoshop.

Step Five

To share this action with other people, just copy and provide the Sharpen Photos.atn file to whomever you're sharing the action with. They'll be able to load it right into Photoshop and use it the same way you did (see the next tutorial to find out how).

You can't save an action unless it's located inside of a set, and you have to click on that set before you try to save the action. If you click on an action, Save Actions will be grayed out on the Actions palette's flyout menu. Yep, even if you just want to save one action you first need to create a new set or put it into an existing set. Sorry, I didn't make the rules here.

Turbo Boost

You can quickly load an action into Photoshop by navigating to the action in Adobe Bridge and double-clicking it.