Consequences of Actions

Ok this is a bit of a combined post, drawing on some old notes from my night class as well as some sharpening tips from this book I've been reading. Let's start with actions. Basically these allow you to process an image using the click of a button, to save you having to go through and manually fix an image. It is also useful for batch processing a bunch of similar images.

Creating an action:

You can create a new set which is basically a folder for similar actions.
After clicking on Create new action, you'll be prompted to name it, then hit Record.
You then go about processing the image, and everything you apply will be recorded under that action.
Once complete, press the Stop button and it stops recording.

Running an action:

In Bridge, select an image or images.
Tools > Photoshop > Image Processor
You can opt to save the images to a specified file type, and select which actions to run.
Click Run and it takes care of the rest.

Below are 2 images, one the original and the other a 'sharpened' image I processed using the Unsharp Mask (Amount 65%, Radius 3, Threshold 2), and Fade Unsharp Mask (Luminosity). See if you can tell which is which.