Photoshop Actions Picture Perfect PS Guide With Tips by Paint the Moon Photoshop Actions

Picture Perfect Mega Set

where perfect portraits are a breeze

PHOTOSHOP EDITION

over 70 powerful, professional actions from retouching and all in one worfkflow edits to beautiful artistic edits

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Table of Contents 3. Color Perfecters 4. All In One Power House Mega Actions 4. Skin, Hair and Eye Retouchers 5. Artistic Touches 6. Essential Details and Exposure Enhancers 7. Sharpen and Resizers and Helping Hands 8. Tips for Using Your Actions 9. Links to Video Tutorials, Resources and More!

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Color Perfecters Creamy Skin Brightener - This is a perfect way to start your editing process. It helps brighten and tone the skin. If it's too warm, turn off the Extra Warm Lightening layer. If you want to see more brightening, flatten your image and run again. Creamy Skin Brightener Richer Details - This is a perfect way to start your editing process. It helps brighten and tone the skin. If it's too warm, turn off the Extra Warm Lightening layer. If you want to see more brightening, flatten your image and run again. This version also gives a nice, rich look to shadows for a more lush look. Banish the Red/Orange Blotchies - A perfect action to help with red or orange areas on the skin. When prompted, simply select the area of skin with the most color that you are wanting to remove and let the action do it's work. Don’t be alarmed at the scary black areas while the action is running, this means it’s working properly. Be sure to paint back details like lips where you don't want color removed. Banish the Yellow (Cool/Add Blue) - Cools down an overly warm image with yellow overtones. Banish the Red (Add Cyan) - Cool down an overly warm image with red overtones. Banish the Red (Add Cyan - More Subtle) - Cool down an overly warm image with red overtones. Banish the Magenta (Add Green) - Balance an overly pink-ish/magenta image. Banish the Green (Add Magenta) - Cools down an overly warm image with yellow overtones. Banish the Blue (Warm Up/Add Yellow) - Warms up an overly cool image with blue overtones. Banish the Cyan (Warm Up/Add Red) - Warm up an overly cool image with cyan overtones. Many times what you perceive to be too much blue in a cool photo is actually cyan (not enough red), especially images taken in shaded areas. Banish the Cyan (Warm Up - More Subtle) - Warm up an overly cool image with cyan overtones. Many times what you perceive to be too much blue in a cool photo is actually cyan (not enough red), especially images taken in shaded areas. This gives a subtle result, if the above action added too much red to the entire image. This one is more selective. Banish the Cyan (Extreme Removal - For Skin) - Warming to rid the cyan from your image, great for portraits with lots of cyan in the skin tones (this happens frequently in the shade if custom white balance is not used). Warm Me Back Up (Take Out Cyan and Blue) - Warming in both the Red and Blue channels (adding red/yellow ... removing cyan/blue). Quickie Cast Remover (Remove Strong Color Casts) - Use only for strong color casts that cover the entire image. Use as a last resort for an image that has a dominant color cast saturating the entire image.

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All In One Power House Mega Actions All Together Now (All In One Workflow) - Blast through your foundation workflow edits in one action. This combines the most popular/used adjustments and actions in Picture Perfect to include contrast, pop, basic color correction (warming and cooling), optional layers for a frosted haze and paint on vibrant color, sharpening details, lightening shadows, rescuing over bright highlights, bringing depth and color to your image and more ... it even has a built in optional layer for a beautiful black and white conversion. Totally batchable for ease of speeding through entire sessions. All Together Now (All In One Workflow - Vintage) - Includes all the layers and options of the original, with an added vintage touch from the popular Sweet Prairie Vintage action. Totally batchable for ease of speeding through entire sessions. All Together Now (All In One Workflow - Urban) - Includes all the layers and options of the original, with an added urban touch ... unique to this particular action. Add drama and a twist of urban color to your workflow. Totally batchable. All Together Now (All In One Workflow - Velvet Retro) - Includes all the layers and options of the original, with an added gorgeous retro touch from the much loved Velvet Retro action. Totally batchable. Perfect Portrait (All In One Retouching) - Fabulous action to give you a makeover in a minute. Everything including contrast, skin smoothing, eyes, teeth, warming/cooling, brighten/darken, soft pop, and much more. Perfect for when you want to do a faster edit easily and effectively. I use this one myself constantly!

Skin/Eye/Hair Retouchers Creamy and Smooth Skin - Create that lovely, creamy skin that we envy in babies ... naturally beautiful and fresh. Select your skin tone range when prompted. Be sure mask back fine details, hair, etc. and use a gentle touch. Nobody wants to look like a plastic doll. :) Naturally Perfect Skin - A more subtle result for creamy, smooth and natural skin. Baby Powder (rids hot spots and shine) - Paint away hot spots and shiny skin. If needing to do different areas of the skin, play action again for each subsequent area that is separate. Vivid Eyes - Enhances color and creates pop in the iris of the eye. Not to replace standard eye enhancements and corrections (such as those done with the Miracle Makeover set's Sparkle Eyes). Please remember to be gentle, alien eyes are never flattering! If the catchlight takes on too much color, open the folder and paint over catchlights on the catchlight layer. Hair and Eye Highlighter - A very handy action to help create pop and highlight areas in the hair, the eyes, anywhere you want a little extra pizzaz! Even works with clothing, etc. Again, be gentle and know when to lower opacity for best results.

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Artistic Touches Velvet Retro - I LOVE this action ... beautiful on all types of portraits and beyond. Moonbeams - Think light and airy, the honeyed film of twilight. Turn on the Magic Color layer for an added surprise, turn it up for even more zing. Sweet Prairie (Vintage) - Brings to mind the creamy, strawberry glow of dawn. Beautiful and vintage. Pure Color Snap - Adds zing, color and snap! This is a go to action, lower opacity for a more subtle look. Peach Fuzz - Delicious like the sun in late afternoon, mid summer. Paint on Color Pops - Specially formulated to bring out amazing color hidden in your images ... add depth and fresh color just where you want it. DO NOT paint on skin! Lower opacity again for more subtle hints of color, this is a powerful action. Paint on Color Pops Rich - Specially formulated to bring out amazing color hidden in your images, this time with more richness and lush, deep tones ... add it just where you want it. DO NOT paint on skin! Lower opacity again for more subtle hints of color, this is a powerful action. Quick and Simple Color Pop - A gorgeous little burst of all over color. Selective Focus (Faux Shallow DOF Blur) - Need a little extra creamy bokeh in your image? This will help blur your background just a bit more. Not meant to replace in camera bokeh, but to enhance existing bokeh. Be sure to follow directions and step your brush's opacity down to around 40% and paint around the edges of your first pass to blend properly. Silver Screen (B & W) - A classic and beautiful black and white. City Sidewalk (B & W) - A beautiful black and white with a little retro style, giving you options for several different tones for unique looks. Velvet (All Over Deep Softness) - Creates a deep, softness. Be sure to paint back details in the face or other areas you want to stay sharp. Healthy Glow Contrast - Creates a dewy, fresh look with punch. Paint back details in the face or areas you want sharp. Creamy Haze - Leaves a milky, warm glow with a natural haze. Soft Spotlight - A little soft spotlight to focus on your subject. Natural Vignette - Soft and natural looking vignette ... use gently.

P a g e Rich Spotlight and Vignette - Create extra richness with a lush soft spotlight and a natural vignette. Soft Burnt Edges - A soft, deep edge around your image. Select the size you want from three actions, Smallest to Regular.

Essential Details and Enhancers On Edge (Deep Detail Clarity) - Brings out the detail in deep edges, creating clarity. Use gently - can be overdone quickly. Mask back on skin areas to keep smooth. Let's Be Clear (Lighter Clarity) - Brings out the detail in edges, creating clarity with a lighter touch. Use gently - can be overdone quickly. Mask back on skin areas to keep smooth. Bring Back Highlights - Restores highlights that are near to being blown. Can not recover highlights where all detail has been lost, however (you'll need to try and do that with your RAW image). Brighten Shadows - Reaches into the shadows and pulls out detail. Paints on selectively, just where you need it. Be sure to play with opacity and use a soft, larger brush. Brighten Shadows (Light Touch Everywhere) - Pulls out details from the shadows over your entire image. Midtone Booster - Another go to action that brightens up midtones in your image. Instant Reflector - Use like a digital version of a fill light or reflector ... opens up shadows and brings back lost details. A Little Light and Pop - A perfect way to brighten while maintaining nice contrast and pop to avoid a washed out look. Paint With Light - Paint selective areas lighter or darker as you need them. Paint With Light and Pop - Paint on exposure corrections - for lightening or darkening with added punch and contrast to avoid a washed out or dull look when fixing exposure. A Little Zing - A bit of pop and contrast with a little added zing, not making shadows too deep or highlights too bright. Brighten and Tone - Tones and lightens up your image when it's looking dark and dull. Use gently. Perfect Contrast - One of my favorite combos for perfect contrast. It’s my secret sauce. ;) Little Contrast More Contrast Lots of Contrast Super Contrast

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Sharpen and Resizers Razor Sharp for Print - Uses a combination of methods to sharpen and light clarity - perfect for prints. Sharpen Perfection - A perfect sharpener that helps keep the sharp details where you need them without over sharpening in less detailed areas. Resize and Sharp Web for FB or Blog (best for horizontal) - Perfect size and crystal clear images for posting on the web. Keeps your FB or web images looking as crisp as possible, at 960 pixels wide. Resize and Sharp Web for FB or Blog (for vertical) - Perfect size and crystal clear images for posting on the web. Keeps your FB or web images looking as crisp as possible, at 800 pixels wide. Blog and FB Resize and Sharpen Version Two - My favorite for resizing and sharpening for awesome online image presentation. Four actions in sizes 960, 900, 800 and 720 pixels wide.

Helping Hands Keyline Border - Small - Creates a white border at 15 pixels wide and black, 1 pixel keyline, resizes to 900 pixels wide. Keyline Border - Med - Creates a white border at 50 pixels wide and black, 2 pixel keyline, resizes to 900 pixels wide. Keyline Border - Large - Creates a white border at 85 pixels wide and black, 1 pixel keyline, resizes to 900 pixels wide. Rounded Corners for Web - Creates rounded corners on your image, resizes to 900 pixels wide. Rounded Corners for Print - Creates rounded corners on your image, suitable for high resolution images for print. Make Layer Mask - Reveal All - Self explanatory. Great for actions or textures that don't already have a mask included, or if you need a layer mask on your group of layers. Reveals effects of layer (paint with black to hide areas). Make Layer Mask - Hide All - Self explanatory. Great for actions or textures that don't already have a mask included, or if you need a layer mask on your group of layers. Hides all effects of layer (paint with white to reveal desired areas). Create Snapshot - Takes a snapshot of your image in it’s current state and saves it to the top of your history palette. Great for when you are doing editing like cloning or running actions that don’t include this step (most PTM actions do). Just go back to your saved snapshot at any time and it restores your image to where it was when you created it. Flatten Image - Self explanatory. Merges all layers into one Background layer.

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Picture Perfect Tips

getting the most from your actions Fix color casts and exposure issues first.

Always get your color right using the color correcting actions and fix exposure issues (too dark or light) first ... leaving room for a little more lightening depending on which action you will be running. If you are using one of the All Together Now All In One Workflow actions, there will be lightening and darkening layers to work with, as well as basic warming and cooling layers. If you run a skin smoothing or artistic action on an image with obvious color issues (too cyan/red/magenta/green/yellow or blue), it will tend to exaggerate the color problems. So, fix color and exposure problems first, then move on to the rest of your edits. For light color casts, you can simply run the All Together Now actions and turn on/up the warming or cooling layers as needed. Remember that the artistic actions play with the color in each individual image, shifting them and these actions may look different on different images depending on what colors are in your photo.

Understand your layer masks. Also remember when working with layer masks that white reveals what is underneath a mask on the layer and black conceals the effects. If there is a black box on a layer, you will need to paint on that layer mask to make the effect visible where you want it. See the layer mask basics in the Install Guides for more help, as well as our video tutorials on layers and layer masks.

Play with layer opacity and brush settings. Don’t forget to adjust your opacity on your layers - either by selecting the “Adjust All” layers for the artistic and workflow all in one actions, or by selecting individual layers as desired. You can also adjust the opacity and the softness or hardness of your brush while painting on layer masks - this can help achieve a more natural look as you paint and build up the effect gradually.

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