5 practical action video tutorials in Photoshop for photographers

Herbert Huffner Adobe Photoshop January 11, 2021

Despite having various photo editing programs like Lightroom, Photoshop is still one of the best photo editing programs.

For this reason, today we are going to teach you 5 super practical actions in Photoshop to speed up your action in Photoshop.

We recommend that you put the various actions in the Button Mode section at the very beginning after creating or downloading them, so that they are always available and those actions can be applied to your photos with just one click.

You can even choose a color for each action to make them easier to find when working.

You can also use them as a Layer Mask by creating different color actions.

Action 1: Support

Saturation is one of the most powerful color correction tools in Photoshop, and its main purpose is to fill in the faint parts of the image. After creating action storage, just click on that action to make the faint parts of your photo more colorful. The following image was created using the HSB / HSL filter.

This image shows the faint, bright, dim and bright parts of the photo that can be corrected with the help of sterilization.

How to create action protection:

1- Take a duplicate of the photo you want (Cmd / Ctrl + J)

2. Apply the HSB / HSL filter on the duplicate layer.

3. Press the shortcut key Ctrl / Cmd + J on the keyboard.

4. In the Layers panel, right-click on the Green Channel option below “Channels”, select the Duplicate Channel option, and name it Sat Mask.

5. Now go to the Layers panel and delete the duplicate layer.

6. Go to “Channels”, hold down the Cmd / Ctrl key and click on Sat Mask.

7. In the Layers panel, follow Adjustment Layer> Hue / Saturation.

8- In the opened page, set the amount of support to 25 (or any amount that is suitable for your photo).

9. Go to Layer> Layer Style> Blending Options.

10. In the page that opens, set the This Layer slider between 10 and 245.

11- Hold down the Alt key to split the slider into two parts, set the number of the first part of the slider between 70 and 160. Now click on OK.

12. Then remove the Sat Mask.

13. Press the shortcut key Ctrl / Cmd + E.

View of the original photo with HSB / HSL filter

If you are not satisfied with the result after applying the action on the image, you can press Cmd / Ctrl + Z to delete the applied changes.

Action 2: Medium Contrast

With the help of Mid-Tone Contrast action, the dark and dim parts of the photo become brighter, and increasing the brightness of the photo, in turn, increases the color intensity of the image.

By comparing these two photos, you will notice that the photo on the left does not have more contrast to the photo on the right.

How to create middle contrast action:

1. Go to the Channel section and press the RGB Channel while pressing the Ctrl / Cmd key.

2. Now go to the Layers section and press Cmd / Ctrl + J shortcut key to add a new layer to the Layers panel.

3. Go to the Blending Mode section and select the Soft Light option to apply the center contrast to the image.

4- Set the Opacity of the photo to 50%.

5. Press the shortcut key Ctrl / Cmd + E.

Action 3: Resolution and photo details

With the help of this action, you can increase the sharpness and detail of the photo.

How to create action resolution and photo details:

1- Take a duplicate of the photo you want (Cmd / Ctrl + J)

2. Name that layer Clarity.

3. Follow Filter> Camera Raw Filter and open ACR.

4- Set the Clarity slider to 100%.

5. Click OK.

6. Go to Layer> Layer Style> Blending Options.

7. In the page that opens, drag the Underlying Layer slider to the bottom left.

8. Click OK.

9- Set the Opacity of the photo to 60%.

10. Press the shortcut key Ctrl / Cmd + E.

With the help of this action, the sharpness and detail of the photo on the right has been increased.

Action 4: Noise reduction

In Lightroom and ACR, you can give an HDR effect to your photos with just the push of a button to remove high contrast photos.

In the area marked in the photo, the intensity of the shadows is slightly reduced. Reducing shadows can cause noise in photos. You can solve this problem by creating action noise.

As you can see in the photo on the right, there is less noise in the bright parts of the photo (red parts) after applying this action.

Of course, do not forget that for each photo you can create a separate noise canceller to completely eliminate image noise.

How to create noise reduction action:

1- Take a duplicate of the photo you want and name it Reduce Noise.

2. Apply the Noise Reduction option on the duplicate layer.

3. Go to the Channels section and press the RGB Channel while pressing the Ctrl / Cmd key.

4. Press Shift + Ctrl / Cmd + I.

5. Click Save Selection as a Channel to create a channel called 1Alpha.

6- Go to the layers section and add a mask to the duplicated layer.

7. Delete 1Alpha channel.

8. Press the shortcut key Ctrl / Cmd + E.

Action 5: Sharpen

Sharpening is part of the contrast settings and increases the sharpness and sharpness of the image. One way to control image sharpness is to use the Luminosity Mask.

By applying the Luminosity Mask in the photo above, the dark parts of the photo (redder parts) become less sharp than the light parts of the photo so that the viewer’s main focus is on the main and light parts of the photo.

How to sharpen images:

1- Take a duplicate of the photo you want and name it Sharpen.

2. Go to the Channels section and press the RGB Channel while pressing the Ctrl / Cmd key.

3. Click Save Selection as a Channel to create a channel called 1Alpha.

4. Press Ctrl / Cmd + D.

5. Click on the Sharpen layer.

6- Follow the path Filter> Unsharp Mask and in the opened page, set the values 500-400, 1.2-0.8 and 0, respectively.

7. While holding down the Ctrl / Cmd key, click on 1Alpha.

8. Go to the Layers section, select the Sharpen layer and click on the Add Layer Mask icon.