Question about Actions and PSE

[SarahMD]

I've made a few actions in Photoshop CS, but I had someone with PSE4 try and use them and she couldn't. Would any of you happen to know how I can save these to be usable in PSE4 or what she can do to maybe get them to work in PSE4.

[Kim2002]

When I made mine, I found that it was helpful to have PSE 4 open at the same time to be sure I used functions that were available in PSE 4. Some of the functions are the same, but they are located in a different spot. So you have to make it the way that PSE 4 can read it.

[michelle pearson]

I responded to you @ ILP :)

[SarahMD]

Ok I have PSE4 - HOW do I create an effect? I've looked in the help area and I am LOST as to HOW I create on. I'm so not used to PSE! LOL.

[seebee]

I can give you a few tips that might help. First of all, there's really only one trick to getting the action to run in PSE. PSE needs a 64 x 64 pixel, 72 ppi thumbnail file to go along with the .atn file that you would create in PS. This thumbnail, which needs to be named *exactly* the same as your .atn file, is what PSE uses to "run" the action. So, you would create a folder with two files per action: a .psd thumbnail file and the .atn file. For example, a folder called SarahAction, which contains SarahAction.psd and SarahAction.atn . Punctuation & spelling & spaces all have to be *exactly* the same. :)

The other thing is that you can't use any commands or tools in your action that PSE cannot handle. No curves, channel mixer, fade...things like that. And you can't stop the action & ask the user to restart the action by pressing the play button, since there is no play button in PSE. :) You can set it up to have pauses for the user to choose settings in a dialog box. For instance, you can have the Gaussian Blur filter pop up & let the user choose the amount of blur. But you need to have it set up so the action will continue once the user clicks "OK" within the Gaussian blur box. IOW, PSE users have no way to continue an action unless it's specifically written into the action.

Hope that helps some.

[seebee]

Oh, you may already know this but I should also mention that if you want to get the action installed into PSE to test it, you need to drop that folder with your action & psd thumbnail into Preview/Effects (in version 4; it's different in v5). Then, trash or rename the Preview/Cache folder so that it can rebuild that file when you run PSE again. Your new action would appear in the Effects palette after the rebuild and you can test it by double clicking the thumbnail.

[jencaputo]

if you search google for "actions in PSE" the first link explains it very clearly!

[SarahMD]

So can you NOT create a new effect IN PSE - I'll have to recreate the action in CS and make sure I use the same commands in PSE??? I've got that site bookmarked so I know that will work.

[seebee]

So can you NOT create a new effect IN PSE - I'll have to recreate the action in CS and make sure I use the same commands in PSE??? I've got that site bookmarked so I know that will work.

Right. PSE cannot make/create any actions/effects. But as long as the guidelines are followed, they can play them. :)

[SarahMD]

Ok!! Thanks for the clarification ladies! I do greatly appreciate it!