What are Photoshop actions?

When working on Photoshop, there is a feature that allows you to track all your edits and save them as an 'action'. This means that in the future you can quickly apply all of those edits at once rather than having to add all of the adjustment layers and masks one-by-one every time you want to apply the same kind of edit to an image. If you then assign that action to a shortcut key, it means you can perform an edit at just the press of a button, saving you minutes and hours of your time. They're an absolute lifesaver if you're in a rush, or if you have lots of projects to edit in a similar fashion – and of course, they're all designed by you, to suit you and your process. But you can also import Photoshop actions created by other people, saving you even more time.

How do I install Photoshop actions?

Most free Photoshop actions will download as zip folders. You'll want to download this and extract the contents (which should take the form of an .ATN file) to an easy-to-find location on your computer. To install the Photoshop actions and make them available to use in Photoshop, you'll need to select the Window Menu in Photoshop and choose 'Actions'. Click on the Menu Icon at the top right of the Actions panel, scroll down to Load Actions and open the Photoshop Actions Folder. Navigate to the folder where you saved the Photoshop action and double-click the .ATN file. Once the action you want appears listed, you can simply click the Play button.

59 of the best free Photoshop actions

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Touch-up techniques

Free Photoshop actions: Touch-up techniques

42. 5 Skin Retouching actions

Free Photoshop actions: retouch skin — Sort out your skin the easy way (Image credit: www.photoshoptutorials.ws)

Download 5 Skin Retouching actions from Photoshop Tutorials

Want to retouch skin like a boss? This set of retouching actions will give you a head-start, enabling you to heal, mattify and airbrush skin with one click. You can also use them to brighten eyes and increase their contrast.

44. High Definition Sharpening

Free Photoshop actions: High definition sharpening — This action offers a simple one-click solution to sharpening

Download High Definition Sharpening from MCPactions

The final stage of image preparation should be to sharpen your images according to the final delivery method (you sharpen differently for print or screen). This free action from MCP Actions offers a simple one-click solution to sharpening, with the ability to control the degree of sharpening that’s been applied after the fact by adjusting the opacity and masking of layers.

45. Soft Skin Tones

Free Photoshop actions: soften skin effect — Smooth skin while retaining textures and colouring

Download Soft Skin Tones from Turning Turnip

Used in combination with an existing selection or mask, this smoothes skin while retaining textures and colouring, saving clean-up time. It's available to download for free.

46. Remove White Background

Free Photoshop actions: remove white background — Get rid of white backgrounds with these actions

Download Remove White Background from Mediamilitia

Automatically remove white backgrounds with this suite of three actions that allow for different automated processes to strip out the background of your isolated images.

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Kerrie Hughes is Editor at Creative Bloq. One of the original CB crew, Kerrie joined the team back in 2013 after moving from her role as staff writer on 3D World. Since then she's written regularly for other creative publications. Kerrie's work for Creative Bloq involves managing the team and the site's content, developing and maintaining commercial partnerships, and finding innovative ways to bring Creative Bloq's audience the content they're looking for.

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