Preparing Images using Photoshop Actions

Saturday, January 10, 2009

This tutorial was created using Photoshop CS2

Whenever you are handed a grainy or low quality magazine scan image of a celebrity to work with, the graphic never turns out as flawless as you wish it to be. Hence, you would prepare the image to give it that beautiful flawless and/or glowy and brighter look. This tutorial will show you how to achieve this through Adobe Photoshop's "Actions" tool, which can help you save time by automating repetitive tasks (such as, in this case, preparing images)

Pick your image to work with. I will be using this relatively low quality and grainy photo of Korean popstar BoA Kwon.



Next, if you do not have the “Actions” palette open in your Photoshop, open it via Window >> Actions or via the keyboard shortcut Alt+F9. If your “History” palette is enabled, “Actions” is the tab right next to it.



Create a new action by clicking the second icon at the bottom of the palette from the right.



A window should now pop up. Name it anything you like and put it in any set of actions you like. For instance, I named mine “Prep” and placed it under “Basics”. PS even allows you to add a keyboard shortcut for it!

Once you press “Record”, however, you must be careful what you do. Everything that is now done will be recorded into your action. You are going to first start off by duplicating the original picture layer by going to Layer >> Duplicate Layer or by pressing Ctrl-J on the keyboard.

Next on the duplicate layer, apply a filter by going to Filter >> Noise >> Dust & Scratches. Set the following setting:

Radius: 3 pixels
Threshold: 0 levels

My photo now looks like:



Go to Filter >> Blur >> Gaussian Blur and set the radius to 0.8 pixels. The photo should now look softer, less angular.



Go to Filter >> Noise >> Add Noise and set these settings:

Amount: 0.8%
Distribution: Uniform
Monochromatic (checked)



Here, we will now stop recording the action by clicking the square button at the far left bottom of the palette.



Whenever you want to apply these effects to an image in order to soften it, simply lick the triangle "Play" button (3rd from the left) on the "Actions" Palette

Now that we have a filtered image this is very soft, there are 2 ways to create the flawless image perfect for graphics.

Method I:

One way is to leave the filtered layer at "Normal" at approximately 50-70% and create a layer mask.

Using a soft brush of appropriate size (and relatively low opacity), erase away at the details (such as her eyes) which you want to show very clearly.



Here is my final result using this method:



Method II:

Another way is to set this filtered layer to “Softlight” at approximately 50% opacity.
Duplicate this filtered layer again and set it to “Screen” at approximately 50%.

You will have to experiment and see what opacity settings work for you for each individual photo. You could also place the “Softlight” layer above the “Screen” layer. Experiment and find something that would achieve your desired effect.

Because I find that the image still looks a bit harsh, I pile all of the layers into one by clicking "Ctrl-Alt-Shift-E". I set this layer to "Normal" at approximately 50% opacity.

This is my final result:



As you can see, Method II provides a more "sheer" and glowy and brighter finish. Use whatever method you like to achieve the flawless image you want.



Accomplished! You now have an image that is more ideal to work with in a graphic! What's better is that you can apply this effect on every single image effortlessly with Photoshop Actions!