Download Day: Free Photoshop Actions

How many of you use Photoshop? If so, then you have to be familiar with Photoshop Actions!
Photoshop Actions take your photographs to the next level, whether its adding a lighting effect to touching up a portrait......basically its like putting an filter on your instagram photo, lol

What are Photoshop Actions? Simply put, a Photoshop Action  is a file(.atn) that contains a sequence of steps (or actions) that can be applied all at once to a picture you are working on with the simple click of one button.

There are several popular companies that offer Photoshop Action bundles for a variety of effects like Florabella or Summerana, but if you are not a photographer or are  more "recreational" users, you many not be able to "invest" in these actions bundles.

The following are a few free Photoshop Actions ( some from the two companies above) that you can create a variety of effects from.  Though most of these actions show portraits/landscapes, these are also great for product photography as well. The photoshop actions numbered 2, 5, and 13 are great for those product photos that you need to lighten with the click of a button.

Also, at the end of the post there good video on how to install and use the actions for Photoshop. Please note that some actions may require an earlier version of Photoshop, but most are compatible with cs2and higher.

You can download all of these Photoshop Actions below at one time HERE.

1. via

2. via

 

3. via

4. via

5. via

6. via

7. via

8. via

9. via 

10. via

11. via

12. via ( 32 different ones)

13. via

14. via

Installing Actions                                                                                                       
There are a few ways to install your actions.  The following is one of the easiest ways to install them.

1. After you've downloaded the zip file containing your actions, you'll need to unpack the contents of the file ( for most people who do not have an program that they use for this like winrar or etc, you can just right click the file and select "send to" to save to your computer).  Once the file has been extracted, you should  reveal a new folder containing the .ATN file for your new actions.
2. You can either drag this file directly into your Photoshop window, or you can use the action panel drop down in Photoshop to select your .ATN file and load your actions
3. Once loaded....Viola! its ready to use.

Using Actions                                                                                                               

1. Select the layer you want to apply the action to.
2. Select the action you want to use from your action panel.
3. Hit the "play" button down at the bottom of the panel.
4. You will see Photoshop "go thru" the sequence ( it will look like a rapidly playing movie) and at the end the filter will be applied to the picture.

The following is a very informative, short video on how to install and use the actions via Photoshop Video Academy.