Advanced editing, Actions and Batching

1. Tools. First let’s go over the toolbar: Each tool has its own options; these are located in the Options panel that usually


appears right below the file menu. Take some time experimenting with each tool and its options.

(V) Move tool. With this tool you can move the objects in the layer you have selected in the layers panel.

Use Ctrl click or Shirt click to select multiple layers and move them together.

(M) Marquee Select tool. Click and drag a rectangular selection. This tool will select what is visible, not only

from the selected layer. Turn off layers if you don’t want to select from them. You can then copy, paste, etc.

(L) Lasso tool. This is a selection tool that allows you to draw a shape around what you want to select.

(W) Magic Wand tool. This tool might be one of the most useful. You can select pixels with similar values

(color). Important options are the Tolerance and the Contiguous check box. The Tolerance sets the level of

similarity the selected pixel. Tolerance level ranges from 0-255; 0 is for the same values, and 255 selects a

broad range of values similar to the target pixel’s value. With Contiguous unchecked, you can select from

the entire layer, or you can restrict it to only pixels that are neighbors.

(C) Crop tool. Refer to part 1 for a full description of the Options.

(I) Eyedropper tool. Use this tool to select the color value from any pixel. It will be sampled into the color

panel.

(J) Spot Healing Brush tool. This tool will resample the area inside the cursor window one of two ways. In the

Options panel there are two options: Proximity Match will sample from the edge of the window, Create

Texture will resample from a texture generated from within the cursor window. This tool can be used to

correct imperfections in an image.

(B) Pencil tool. Use this tool to draw lines; lines will be draw in raster (pixels, not vector paths)

(S) Clone Stamp tool. This tool can be used to remove parts of an image by replacing those pixels with values

from other pixels. To use this tool, first hold Alt and select the area of pixels you want to clone, then simply

click on an area to clone it. You can click individual actions or hold down the mouse button to clone

continually. In the options you can sample from other layers.

(Y) History Brush tool. This tool can be used to make a photo look like a painting.

(E) Eraser tool. This tool erases pixel values in the cursor window (makes pixels transparent). If you use this

tool on the Background layer it will erase pixels to the color selected in the color panel.

(G) Paint Bucket tool. This tool will fill areas in the image with the selected color. In the Options window, use

the Tolerance to adjust how the tool defines an area that can be filled. Also notice the Contiguous option.

The last two icons are filters that can be applied locally (in the cursor window). Play around with these their

names describe what they do: Blur will blur transitions between changes in pixel values; Sharpen will try to

do the opposite creating contrast between neighboring pixels; Smudge will smudge pixels as if the image

was wet paint; (the last three names are not so intuitive) Dodge and Burn can be used to lighten or darken

areas of an image respectively; the Sponge tool changes the saturation level of the selection (choose

Desaturate or Saturate in the Options panel).2. Actions. In Photoshop you can record a sequence of actions that you do on an image. This allows you to save time


when repeating a process on multiple images. Sets of these actions can be saved and reloaded later.

First, open the Actions panel (Window
Actions). You will notice a number of preloaded actions available in Photoshop.

On the bottom of the panel you have the following icons: Stop, Record, Play, Create new set, Create new action and

Delete. Let’s create a new set; then create a new action in that set. The set is just a folder that contains actions. You

don’t have to create a set to create an action, but you can only save sets, not actions alone.

When you create a new action, it automatically starts recording. Actions are simply a recorded list of tasks you did in


Photoshop (they record in a chronological manner, not a temporal manner). When you are done recording, you push

Stop. Actions are made up of these individual tasks; they are called steps. Steps can be edited; if you want to change a

step, you need to have an image open in Photoshop. Double click on the step to edit it. The order of steps in an action

can be rearranged; so you can delete a bad step, start recording, redo that step, stop recording and then move the step

to the place you want it. Make sure that the chronological order of your steps is logical (i.e. don’t export before all

editing has be conducted).

3. Batching. Once you have created an action, you can batch the action for a set of images (i.e. repeat the action

systematically on multiple images). Go to File
Automate
Batch. In the following window you can set up the batch to

open files from one directory and save them in another. You can also have the edited version overwrite the original.

The way you set up the batch will depend on what you need done and what actions you are running. Notice that you can


choose a source folder and a destination folder. Use this set up when you want to keep your originals. Use the override

“Open” and override “Save As” only when your action includes those operations. The File Naming helps you keep your

edited images identifiable from the originals. However, the File Naming option is ignored when using the Save for Web

option in your action. The File Naming only works for Save As, and therefore you can’t take advantage of the file

compression of Save for Web option. The way around this is to, first create an action that will do a Save As and rename

the files; then create a second action that will do a Save for Web and overwrite the renamed files from the Save As. Then

batch the first action; when it finishes, batch the second action. You can actually create an action that includes batching.

So you could automate this entire process. Remember, an action will record any task conducted in the Photoshop

program.