In this category we will be publishing sets of free actions for your personal use.
Today the actions relate to the articles on the Rule of Thirds and the Golden Ratio. They overlay guides on your image showing either the location of the Rule of Thirds key lines or the Golden Ratio lines.
Firstly a small tutorial about Actions in Photoshop.
Actions are simply a collection of steps or actions that are recorded inside Photoshop. This could be almost anything you can do in Photoshop and can range from a few steps to the most complex processing within Photoshop. They are particularly useful when you need to repeat actions at regular intervals. In those cases they can save you immense amounts of time and effort.
Photoshop ships with a large number of pre-recorded actions – some of which are well hidden. When you first open the Actions panel you will find a sample of Adobe actions installed for you. Often people look no further but there is a treasure trove of actions just a small step away. These allow a wide range of actions, including generating text effects, commands and even making frames for your images. To access all this goodness simply click on the toolbox menu at the top right hand corner of the Actions panel. The library of actions are nested near the bottom of the menu that opens.
Why not try them?
In today’s post we provide a couple of simple actions to overlay some guides on your images. These are based on either the Rule of Thirds or the Golden Ratio to help you to accurately locate the key parts of the image to produce a, hopefully, harmonious effect. To use today’s actions you need to: -
1: Download the action file
2: Insert it into Photoshop
3: Run the actions
I will go through each step in turn.
1: Down load the action file
Simply click on the URL below to download a zip file of the Actions. Unzip on receipt.
2: Insert it into Photoshop
Double click the improved Images.atn file.
If closed, Photoshop will automatically open and insert the actions for you. If Photoshop is open it will automatically insert the actions.
3: Run the Actions
Open the Actions panel by going to Window>Actions or Opt+F9.
Scroll down to the Improved Images section.
Twirl the triangle open and select either of the two options
Press the ‘Run’ button at the base of the Actions panel and hey presto.
NB
These actions remove any guides that may already be open.
To remove the guides – go to View>Clear Guides