Quick Tip: Apply a Vintage Effect to Several
Images Using Actions

Final Product What You'll Be Creating

Have you ever wanted to apply the same effect to several images at once?
This is an issue that most designers face at some point in their career. In
some situations, you might be able to apply an effect individually one photo
at a time. That takes time however, and if you have dozens or even hundreds
of images to process, that is simply not possible. The solution is to create
an action and apply it using a batch process. In today’s quick tip tutorial
we will demonstrate how to create an action and apply it to several images
using Photoshop’s batch process function.

Step 1

In my particular case , I decided to apply a vintage effect to all the
photos in a folder on my machine. So the first step is to open a folder with
all the photos you want to apply an effect to.

Step 2

Next, choose a random photograph and open it in Photoshop.

To apply the same effect to all the photos you will need to create an
action. Go to the actions panel and press the New Action button. Name it
Action 1.

Press record.

Step 3

In this step I will detail all the steps I took to apply a vintage effect
to my images but you should feel free to apply any effects that you see fit,
depending on your project. Keep in mind that you are recording so every step
you take from this moment on will be recorded until you press the Stop
button.

Apply an Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation.

Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur: 4 px. Layer Blending Mode: Soft
Light. Opacity: 70%.

Go to Image > Adjustments > Variations (2 clicks on more cyan ). Blending
mode: Overlay. Opacity: 80%.

Go to Filter > Other > High pass: 3 px. Layer Blending Mode: Soft Light.

Go to Adjustment Layer > Gradient Map. Opacity: 60%.

Go to Adjustment Layer > Photo Filter: 15%.

Now let’s save our work as a JPEG. This is very important because it
needs to be recorded as an action. Name it as Copy as shown below.

Next, close the document. When prompted to save the changes in a PSD,
select No. This is necessary because otherwise Photoshop will ask you the
same question for all your photos.

Step 4

Now the action is ready. Press the Stop button.

Step 5

Go to File > Automate > Batch. Select Action 1, go to Source and select
the folder in which your photos are located. Check Suppress File Open
Options Dialog and press Ok.

Step 6

Sit back and watch as Photoshop does all the work for.

Conclusion

That’s it! We’re finished! Hope you learned something new!

Wednesday, April 27, 2011