Adobe Photoshop Elements Can Run Actions

As a scrapbook enthusiast who fully believes in putting her computer and graphic programs to full use when it comes to altering pictures to fit my scrapbook layouts to perfection, I long ago became a fan of the software program Adobe Photoshop Elements. For the record, I am currently running version 3, though two newer versions are available. It has continued to meet my needs and I see no reason to run out and spend money on a new version just yet. Originally I chose it as a much cheaper alternative to the full fledged Adobe Photoshop, as it has always allowed for quite a large amount of photo editing, including such editing basics as converting color photos to black & white or sepia tone, and more playful alterations such as using artistic and special effect brushes.

Recently, I became aware of what is referred to as an Action when in discussion about graphic programs in general. An Action is a series of edits bundled into what appears to be a simple single action, but is actually a series of actions, allowing the software program the Action is run in, to alter your photograph in a much more detailed, yet much less time-consuming way than one would be able to do without the Action. If I have not lost you after that explanation, some examples of Actions that I have since used include turning a single photograph into numerous puzzle pieces or several photos into what looks like a film reel, all with little effort on my part beyond loading the photograph into my workspace and applying the chosen Action to it.

I had previously learned, wrongly, I might add at this point, that an Action could not be run in such a basic program as Elements, and needed a full featured program such as Adobe Photoshop. Thankfully I learned this was not so. While not all Actions made for Adobe Photoshop will run in Adobe Photoshop Elements, many will, some dependent on which version of Elements you are running too, so do keep this in mind if you decide to try out Actions in your own copy of Adobe Photoshop Elements.