I finished up the first course on Photoshop and now it's time to working backwards. Since I started learning how to create certain effects first instead of learning about each individual tool, there are definitely holes in my knowledge, but that's easily remedied. My next step is downloading premade Actions into Photoshop, not to actually use them, but to learn how other people utilize different tools.
For anyone who doesn't know what Actions in Photoshop are(that was me until yesterday), they are step by step functions that are saved as a way to make workflow more efficient. So instead of performing a number of adjustments to a batch of photos one by one, you can use the premade Actions to perform each adjustment on the photos you want to adjust. It works almost exactly like Macros in Excel.
Based on one of the video tutorials for the Photography course I took on Udemy, I thought this type of automation was only possible in Lightroom, but with Actions it's just as easy in Photoshop.
For example, I learned how to use gradients to create ethereal and vintage looks from running an Action someone else created. I wasn't a fan of the results from the Action, but it did get me to spend a good portion of my Photoshop time playing with different variations of gradients. As you can see below I was having fun cropping my niece into a field of flowers and using a rainbow gradient to hide the differences in color between the foreground and background photo. The difference is still noticeable, but I know the more I learn and practice the better my results will be.
Here's another example with the Taj Mahal photo I used before. I added a rainbow gradient and then a little bit of motion blur to make this photo ready for a dream or a children's story.
After a childhood raised on Lisa Frank, I had to hold back on just how opaque I made that rainbow.
0 comments