[Photoshop Tutorial IV: Layers]

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This tutorial is for Photoshop 7 and CS users, since I only have a Windows OS, I can’t be sure if it is the same for a Mac or Linux.

In this tutorial, I will show you how easy it is to use Macros/Actions in Photoshop using real examples. Photoshop is a registered trademark of Adobe Inc. You may link to this tutorial, but its intellectual copyright belongs only to me, Jonathan Wu. All of the features mentioned in the program itself are copyrighted by Adobe.

The Actions Pallet:

Before we can begin making a sequence of actions, we need to locate our action pallet. Remember the history pallet? There is a tab next to History on the same pallet called Actions, click on in to reveal the Actions Pallet. In Photoshop, a Macro is a sequence of actions bundled together under one name. Why is this useful? Say you have 50 images that you need to adjust. Of course you can manually adjust all of them, but if you could do everything you want in just one click, why waste so much time? Before we begin to explain how to make a macro, let’s take a look at what my Actions Pallet looks like:

As you can see I already made a lot of Macros to help me when I am preparing my digital Photos for the internet. The first one is used to make a 150 by 113 pixel preview of the photo when the pixel dimensions are 1024 x 768, the second one is the same, but used when the pixel dimensions for the photo are reversed (i.e. when I hold my camera vertical instead of horizontal. The last two are used to turn my large pictures into the standard 1024 x 768 size so that I can use it on the web.

Making a Macro:

Let’s try to make the same macros as I have made. Firstly, download this picture (unzip it first) and then open it in Photoshop. As you can see, the picture is quite big, too big as a matter of fact. So we are going to want to change that. So let’s make a Macro for it. First, open the Actions Pallet by switching the Actions tab on your history pallet. Select “Default Actions” and press the new file icon to make your new macro, the following menu will pop up:

Here you can enter a few things. Start with giving your action a name, in this case, name it: Digital Photo Resize. You can leave the Set alone, unless you have created a new set for the actions you are making. Function key refers to the shortcut that you want to give to you Macro (like Shift + R), this is optional and recommended only for people who are familiar with all the shortcuts in Photoshop. Color is just color it will have in the actions pallet. Now click on record when you’re done. Now the macro will record any action you take. We want to resize the current picture, so select the file that you opened, go to Image \ Image Size and the resize dialog will open. Enter 1024 pixels width and 768 pixels height (height will automatically adjust as long as you have the constrain proportions option selected). The image will resize to the size that we wanted. Now look at the Actions Pallet again, and press the Stop (Stop Current Recording) icon to stop recording. Now your macro is done. You can test it by closing the picture without saving it, and then selecting the action and pressing the Play (Play Current Macro) icon to replay the macro and resize the picture!

Now lets make a macro that a little more difficult, first, download this picture to your computer and open it in photoshop. We are going to make a preview the same way I make them for our Photography Page. Create a new action, and name it Digital Photo Preview. Start recording. First, lets resize the image to a better size. Go to Image / Image Size and enter 150 pixels as width, and 113 as height. The image should become small. Now go the Layers pallet and create a new layer, or go to Layers / New / Layer and create a new one, you don’t have to give it a special name. Now make sure that your first color is black and your background color is white. Now press Crtl + Backspace to Fill the layer with white. Now go to Edit / Stroke and select 1 px stroke in the center and press OK. Now select your magic wand tool, and press anywhere on the white. Once it is selected, press Delete to clear ir out (this will reveal your original photo). Now press Crtl + D or go to Select / Deselect to deselect the part we just cleared. Finally press Stop to stop recording the Macro. Now if you click on the arrow left of the Macro, you will see all the steps we took to make it.

If you want to test your Macro, close the image without saving it. Open it again and press Play to see all those steps happen in just a blink of an eye. Using Macros will save you time on many different things, and the more you use them the more you will get comfortable with them. Macros can handle pretty complex instructions, so be sure to test it out.

Lessons:
Tutorial I: Resizing & Canvas Work
Tutorial II: Color Management
Tutorial III: Layers
Tutorial IV: Macros
Computer Arts