Just for a change of pace, I thought I would play with some Photoshop actions in my rather large collection. I am a big fan of actions, and on a day-to-day basis I use them for practical things like sharpening images for detail and for print, and they are a huge time saver for repetitive things. But for this post I will concentrate on actions for creating a painting look to a photograph. Most of the examples, if not all, were downloaded from Action Central, are free and have been tested. Actions are easy to install in Photoshop. Here is a link for detailed instructions, but I have found that on my Windows-based machine that once the action is downloaded and unzipped, if necessary, all I have to do is double-click the action from my desktop, or wherever it is located.  The action, which has a .atn file extension, installs automatically and is usable right away, whether I have Photoshop opened or not. For Photoshop Elements users, installation is a little more complicated depending on the version of the software that you have. Doing a Google search will lead you to a place to get instructions, and you could also use the Help feature in the program.  Not all actions will work in Photoshop Elements; it just depends on the attributes of the action (mostly filters) but it doesn’t hurt to try.

Photoshop’s Window Menu

A newly installed action will appear in the actions pallet at the bottom of the list of installed actions. If you don’t see the actions pallet in your workspace, just go to the Window menu and check Actions. The actions are displayed in the collapsed dock as a triangle pointing to the right, and to play the action select it and click on the “play” triangle.

Photoshop’s Actions Pallet

Just a note: you may want to duplicate your original first to preserve it, and change the mode to 8-bit since some of these artistic actions use filters that are not available for 16-bit images.  Just go to the Image menu and select Mode, then 8 bits/channel.

Here is my original image, taken on a trip to Canada in 2005, outside a restaurant on the way to Peggy’s Cove.  Click on any image to see full size.

Original Photo – near Halifax, Nova Scotia 2005

Following are the different artistic treatments of the same photo, all done with the push of a button. I’ve provided detail on some of them so you can appreciate the effects of the actions on a larger scale.

You don’t have to stop with the action.  Here is one of the “paintings” where I added a texture, masked out some of the painting and added a signature.