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I am breaking in a new computer - transferring, uploading, downloading, installing, you name it - and I’m trying to get all of my Photoshop presets back again. Tonight I’ve been recording actions for black and white, vintage, and sepia photo conversions, and I thought some of you might benefit from these links. Photoshop actions enable you to “record” a series of steps that you can playback later at the click of a button. Here are links to tutorials for creating some of my favorite Photoshop actions. The most important thing I can tell you (and it seems to be missing from many tutorials) is to always begin the recording of your action by choosing “Image > duplicate” so that you edit a copy and not your original image.
I like having these actions because I prefer to photograph in color and then convert to black and white or sepia. It’s a lot easier to remove color later than to add it. Here is the picture I used, a recent shot of my three oldest boys:
Cute, huh? With the benefit of sports photographer Dave Black’s black and white conversion, which “replicates a historical Black and White look and feel to an image,” I get this:
Next are a pair of sepia actions from photoshopsupport.com. The first uses the Photoshop sepia tone filter:
And here is a sepia effect created by converting to grayscale and applying a duotone:
Last but not least, here’s a vintage photo effect:
I love Photoshop actions because once recorded (you can also download them at places like Adobe Exchange), you can do so much with photos with only a click of a button. Enjoy!
But you don’t look old enough for boys that old! ~smile~
You are blessed woman…
January 9th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Yay, dawn, I finally got my bloglines updated for yours!!!! YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY!
January 10th, 2008 at 10:30 am
This is great! What a cute picture of your boys! Thanks for the links too!
January 10th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
Great picture of your boys! I’m still learning a lot about Photoshop and haven’t done anything as far as recording actions to be use in the future. Although I’m also working with Elements 5.0 - can I do that?
Thanks for sharing, Dawn!
January 11th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Lovely boys! I haven’t really played with PS but my husband does so usually I’ll just give him a photo and say, can you do this?
Saves me a lot of time. 
My favorite of your filters for this photo is. . .well I like them all, so my least favorite is the vintage.
PS - We have 6 kids and I homeschool the youngest.
January 23rd, 2008 at 2:51 pm
I’m so jealous.
I want photoshop cs3! 
January 24th, 2008 at 12:10 am