Freebie Photo Pop Action

So, I obviously take...oh, about a million or so photos a year.  Of those, maybe a tenth make it to my computer screen and a teensy-weensy fraction of those make it onto a CD to be saved.  The point is, I edit A L O T of photos. A few need special work, but I do the same flipping things to most of them...over and over and over.  I have fancy actions I've downloaded to pop, sharpen, and defog...but I end up doing it myself most of the time.

Okay, now here's the kicker...I scrap in Photoshop Elements...so I can't make my own action to automate the process.  I know, right? Bummer!

For this reason (and about twenty others) I got Photoshop...I'm still gonna do most of my mojo in PSE, but some stuff just needs the real thing!

Here's my first action.  It automates my standard photo prep that I do on every single pic: It saturates the color a wee bit (I have the opacity of the color pop layer turned down for pics of people, which is what most of mine are.  I dial it up to 50% or so for landscapes and my dog, LoL!  You can adjust it as you please.)  It also has several levels of sharpen.  They're all turned off, you just pick which one works best for your pic and flatten.  I often add a vignette, but I didn't include it because I don't use it all the time.

So there ya go. If you don't know how to install actions, check out these instructions on the Coffeeshop Blog (Rita makes the best and most useful actions around, so check those out, too.  Her perfect portrait action ROCKS.  I also love her vignette action. Oh, and she has an action to let PSE users add layer masks to any layer, too.  I use that one a lot. And they're FREE. Who doesn't love that?)

Photo Pop