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[ 53 ]Some people may be reluctant to consider using automation because
every image they work on is different. An artist or a fine-art photog-
rapher, for example, may feel that they can’t use presets because they
won’t work for every image; however, if you think about the idea of
doing things more quickly, you can certainly implement strategies that
will speed up your workflow. An action, for example, is a way to record a
series of steps that you can then play back at a speed that’s much faster
than you or Photoshop typically run, and we’ll talk about actions later.
But again, some people don’t use actions because they feel they can’t
record a complete end-to-end process that will work for every image. For
me, the solution is to create something I call a “starter action.”
Let’s say, for instance, that for many of your photographs, you add
a Curves adjustment layer to make things lighter, fill its mask with black
to hide the effect, and then paint with white
exactly where you want to lighten the image.
And then you do the same thing with another
Curves adjustment layer to darken areas of
photographs. Well, rather than do that every
time, why not create an action that adds
a lighten Curves adjustment layer with its
mask filled with black, and a darken Curves
adjustment layer with its mask filled with
black; all the action contains is just those two
adjustment layers to get you started. You
still manually paint with white wherever you
want to reveal those adjustment layers, butAutomation in Photoshop is more than just
actions. I think this needs to be said because
that’s what a lot of people think of when it comes
to automation: creating and using actions. But
there’s a lot more to it. To help you better under-
stand all of the different ways we can automate
our work in Photoshop, perhaps it’s best to start
with my definition of Photoshop automation:
Automation is anything that helps you work
faster, or is faster than the manual way of doing
things, and gets to the end result more quickly.