Southern Composition

Who doesn't LOVE actions for photoshop?!! I recently downloaded The Pioneer Woman's action sets (1 & 2) from her blog (for link click on title to this post) and started playing around with them. All I can say is WOW~! Her actions are spot on- the seventies action reminded me of my family's old pics & the vintage action actually makes the image look like it really was taken with an old camera.

What is an action? Basically, it's a saved file for Photoshop which contains multiple editing steps- these are different for each action depending on the look the action is going for. So if I like alot my photos to be sharpened +10 and lightened +5 I can set up Photoshop to record the steps I take to get that and then it compresses it all into one file, saved in my actions tab. This file can then be used on any image with just one click, instead of having to adjust sharpness and lightness individually for each image. BRILLIANT!! It saves me time and quite a bit of hassle. Even better is that after each action finishes it shows up as a layer (or depending on the action multiple layers) which can then be further adjusted (ie opacity, fill, or blending mode, just to name a few) to make the image pop. You can save your own actions or you can download them from the net. These Pioneer Woman actions are the best I have come across yet & I was thoroughly impressed- she should be charging for these!!

If you use photoshop I would highly recommend taking a look at her site in general- topics range from momhood to cooking to photography. She has some great tips and tutorials in addition to her rockin actions...