I was flickr-ing and found a few photographers who use Photoshop Action to save time and simplify post processing. I use Photoshop Action, but merely on photo management such as resizing, bulk editing, framing and etc. I didn’t know (yes, silly me) that Photoshop Action can do so much more, like turning a normal photo into lomo-like effect, vignette a photo, retouching portraits, and etc.

So what is Photoshop Action?

Photoshop Actions are the recordings of commands that can be applied to an image or multiple images. When Photoshop plays an action, it applies these recorded commands to an image sequentially. You can store hundreds of useful actions on your computer and load them into Photoshop whenever you want to apply the commands applied by the action.

So I had a quick search on Google, to my surprised, there are so many good Actions available FREE! But for some, you need to pay for it.

Here are some free Actions I really like.
1. Three free Actions from Addicted to Design – I like the lomo Action.
2. Plenty of Actions from Action Central – I’ve already download the Custom Vignette 2.0 by Galen Evans, and many more!!

Andrew Lee and Anna J also produce some really cool Photoshop Actions suitable for portraits. Check out their websites.

I am going to play with my new downloads, and will consider to get Andrew’s.