photography friday: actions

hi all! so i've decided to start a new reoccurring blog feature called 'photography friday' which will be about...photography and posted on...fridays. ha, i'm so clever, eh?

anyways, i'm NOT a professional so please keep that in mind. i'm just a gal who likes photography and is teaching myself. i still have a lot to learn and as such i spend a bit of time each week discovering new photography blogs, articles, tips etc. that i find useful. they are helping me to learn more about photography, how to make (notice i purposely said 'make' and not 'take' haha) photos, how to do post work in photoshop, and many other things. 

i know some of you are also into photography so i thought by introducing this new weekly blog feature i'd be able to share some of what i learn & find with all of you. i don't know the answer to everything. heck, i probably don't know the answer to most things. but...i do know a little bit and will do my best to share what i know. and you never know - someone else reading may know more and we can all help each other out :) hopefully we can all help each other learn via being active in the comments section too :) please let me know what you think of this new blog feature.

so for today's first 'photography friday' i wanted to talk about actions. i discovered them a few weeks ago and fell in love. literally. where had they been all my life?!? now i don't know all of the technical terms but in the simplest terms an action is a set of steps that you do in your photo editing software, like photoshop, to give your photo a desired look. when you bundle all of the steps together [some have a few steps some have a lot] you get an action. essentially, you can then just click that action name and all of the steps will automatically happen to your picture giving you the desired look of that action. it's a time-saver because you don't have to do all the steps - you just click a button, wait a few seconds and voila!

[before - straight out of camera (sooc). not bad.]

[after - action: 'boost' from *pw's set. you can now see

that the colours been..boosted :) just a bit more intense.]

since i've discovered actions i've been having a lot of fun editing my photos.probably too much fun. before discovering actions i didn't really edit my photos in photoshop - i didn't know how and to be honest i didn't really care if i learned. "i want to learn to make the pictures as good as possible straight out of the camera [sooc]," i'd say. "photoshop seems like cheating or something." how wrong i was**.

i'd see photos on the 'net and wonder how people got their photos to look like that [you know like that] and try harder. now i know the secret...actions. don't get me wrong. getting the best picture as possible straight outta the camera is still hugely important to me but i've discovered that all of the photographers that i admire use actions. wait - let me make this perfectly clear - i am NOT undermining their talent or creativity. i'm certain their pictures sooc are still amazing. however, even if it's just a little boost in saturation, a tweak to sharpen, a wash of vintage colour...no matter how small some work is still done. and i've learned there is nothing wrong with that [but there are things i will definitely not do in photoshop].

[before - not bad. one of my fave photos from my trip actually]

[after - actions: boost & vintage. looks a bit more interesting to me.]

there are all types of actions to do anything you can imagine. sharpen, lighten, darken, vintage, grain, boost colour, take away colour, change to black & white...i can't even begin to name them all because the names are unique to the action. and if you make up an action...you can name it anything you want! there are actions to brighten the eyes, bring out the blue in a picture [good for the sky and such], bring out the green in a picture, add various textures...the list goes on and on and on and on...

[before - not bad...so i thought ;)]

[after - actions: boost & quick edge burn. notice how intense the

colours are now and how the clouds now stand out more.]

and here's the beauty of actions - you can make the changes be so subtle that unless you told someone you did it, they wouldn't know. you can play with the intensity of each action. 100% being full strength. so if you add an action and you like it but it's too intense...knock it down to %78 or %50 or whatever you want! you can also combine actions. so maybe first you add an action that boosts the colour - making your colours pop. then you add an action that darkens the edges a bit so that the focus is more on the centre of the photos. then you add an action [sharpen] that sharpens the picture so parts that are a bit soft or fuzzy aren't so fuzzy anymore and voila! a picture that's just your style :) 

[before - perfectly acceptable i think]

[after - ooooh has much more presence now, don't you think?]

so where can you get actions? if you do a google search you'll find TONS. i think the most popular are from totally rad actions and kubota. they are somewhat of an investment though. totally rad actions offers a small sample for free which i use and they are great. i definitely plan on actually buying a set in the future. rhea of the pioneer woman also has 2 batches of actions that are really great and are FREE [those are the ones i've used in the above photos]! she also has really great photography tutorials and tips.

i hope i explained the function of actions okay. if you want to add something please do so in the comments. tips, suggestions...anything like that! do you use actions? have a favourite combination? i'd love to know!

this weekend if you find yourself at your computer wondering what to do - experiment with some actions. i'm sure it'll have you looking at editing in a whole new light!

*pw = pioneer woman

**well, you can still use photoshop to 'cheat.' but i've set some rules for myself to maintain my...photographic integrity :)