21 Sets of Free Photoshop Actions for Photo Retouching

Written by Kaiser on January 9, 2012 in Actions, Others, Photo Effects - 1 Comment

Photoshop action is the most useful feature of Photoshop (for me). If you know how to use this feature effectively, it will save you a lot of time. For example, if you find yourself doing repetitive tasks or steps in your designs, then you can just simply record these steps and run it next time you are required to perform the same steps and Photoshop will do the work for you. Or sometimes, you want to mimic an effect applied to an image in Photoshop by other people. If a Photoshop action is available for performing such photo effect, then you can just download the Photoshop action file (ATN) and apply it to your own photograph. By doing so, you do not only achieve the look that you want, you also learned how the effect was done to create certain Photoshop effects.

What is Photoshop action? An action is a series of steps that you play back on a single file or a batch of files – menu commands, palette options, tool actions, and so on. Examples of Photoshop actions that you can record are actions for changing the size of an image, applying a filter to the image for a particular effect, and saving the file in the desired format. Actions can also include stops that let you perform tasks that cannot be recorded (such as the use of painting tool).

free photoshop actions

Photoshop comes with predefined actions installed for performing common tasks. You can use these actions and further customize them to meet your requirements. Or, you can create new actions or download actions made available for free by other Photoshop users and install it in your machine.

How to Install Photoshop Actions

The easiest way to install actions in Photoshop is to drag and drop the actions file on the opened photoshop window. This should work both on Mac and on Windows. However, if you want to install the actions manually, you can do it by saving the ATN files first somewhere on the file system then in Photoshop, open the actions palette and click the tiny triangle in the upper right corner. From the appearing menu choose ‘Load Actions’, then choose the file from the file open dialog.

If you need a detailed tutorial on how to use Photoshop actions, I recommend that you view this less than two-minute video tutorial I got from Youtube.

Below are links to some useful Photoshop actions that you can download and use. These actions are categorized into three groups: Color postwork actions, actions for creating vintage or retro effects, actions for creating HDR effects and actions for performing cosmetic retouching.

PHOTOSHOP ACTIONS FOR COLOR POSTWORK

50 Photoshop Postwork Actions

[ FREE PHOTOSHOP ACTIONS ]