Photoshop Actions

[Jill Morgan]

I have quite a few photoshop actions that I have created myself and others I have bought or download from some of the services I subscribe to.

 

I usually don't have any problems with the actions that I have created (although they are mostly simple) but always have issues with the ones I get from other places.  Sometimes they run fine the first time I use it, and then after that I get lots of errors.

 

Anyone here have experience dealing with tempermental PS Actions?  I get something like "The command select is not currently available".  Or some other command that is not available.  Drives me nuts.  Can't seem to find a fix online anywhere.

 

Jill

[Bryan]

I'm afraid that I can't help you with that Jill as all of my PS actions are home brewed - or came with the software - and I've not experienced any difficulty of the sort you describe. My worst problem is that I forget to press the end record button when creating a new action !

 

I would like to be able to edit actions further than being able to delete or insert lines, but maybe that's due to the outdated nature of my copy of PS, or my lack of knowledge. It would be useful to be able to rename an action and to edit the content in a word processor.

[Harry Harrison]

9 hours ago, Jill Morgan said:

Anyone here have experience dealing with tempermental PS Actions?  I get something like "The command select is not currently available".  Or some other command that is not available.  Drives me nuts.  Can't seem to find a fix online anywhere.

It's been some time since I've used Photoshop actions but they are really powerful and I'm not sure that other software offers anything similar, Lightroom setups do most everything I used to use them for though. I remember getting similar errors at times though and I think the only way to fix them is to use the option to step through them a step at a time and then hopefully it will become clear why that particular tool or command might not be available at that point. Once discovered you might need to re-record your own version to fix it.

[MDM]

 

 

13 hours ago, Jill Morgan said:

I have quite a few photoshop actions that I have created myself and others I have bought or download from some of the services I subscribe to.

 

I usually don't have any problems with the actions that I have created (although they are mostly simple) but always have issues with the ones I get from other places.  Sometimes they run fine the first time I use it, and then after that I get lots of errors.

 

Anyone here have experience dealing with tempermental PS Actions?  I get something like "The command select is not currently available".  Or some other command that is not available.  Drives me nuts.  Can't seem to find a fix online anywhere.

 

Jill

 

As Harry says, these errors are usually because that particular command is not available at that time and stepping through the action a step at a time usually reveals what is happening. There is no general fix. Actions are powerful but also coarse in how they deal with errors.  

 

Like Harry, I used to use Photoshop actions quite a bit for batch editing but nowadays use Lightroom for most of that. For example, back in the day I would convert a folder of PSD files to JPEGs using a Photoshop action whereas nowadays I would normally just export the images from Lightroom using an export preset. You can do so much in Lightroom that used to require a very different approach in Photoshop (e.g. conversion to mono and toning) and it is easily automated across a batch of files by syncing. In Photoshop you would need to run a batch action and you can't do it on a raw file. You can do the same in ACR but not as neatly.

Edited January 25, 2022 by MDM

[Jill Morgan]

Thanks for the help, but these actions are really more for the graphic design and artwork side of PS.  It's because it seems to happen with every single action, not just the odd one.  I have gone through them step by step (and some of these may have a hundred different steps) and once in awhile do find where there is a missing step or a file wasn't renamed properly.  If it was not every one, I would think it was simply a sloppy designer.  I'll keep on chugging and see if I can figure this out. 

 

Jill

[Marianne]

Recently, I had an issue with an Action I made myself and am wondering if it is due to things working differently after a PS update. My only experience with this is an Action I made maybe 10 years ago which I used to create a series of 12 or so similar mixed media images over the space of a week or so, without any glitches at the time. I decided recently to try something similar with another series and could not get the Action to work properly, so assume it's due to changes in PS over the intervening years, but I could be wrong, though your experience would seem to indicate it could be an update issue.

 

I'm curious, how do you check an Action step-by-step? 

 

I do most of my work in LR these days too, but for mixed media work, PS is a necessity, and Actions can be so helpful. 

 

You might want to check out Adobe's Discord channels where you can ask questions of other users (lots of whom do amazing creative design work) as well as connect with Adobe "evangelists."  I'm on there as a contributor but they also have a dedicated PS channel. I have the Discord app so no idea re a link - but if you go onto Discord (and sign up, if you haven't already), you can then search for the Adobe PS channel. The various Adobe channels are welcoming and very helpful. 

[MDM]

6 hours ago, Marianne said:

 

 

I'm curious, how do you check an Action step-by-step? 

 

 

 

Open the Actions Panel, choose the action you want to run, pick the command within the action at which you want to start the step by step process and then command-click the run button (arrow) at the bottom of the panel. You have to choose a command within the action - if you start with the title line of the action, then it will just run the entire action as far as I can see. If there are any commands that can't be executed because of the context, it should throw an error. 

Edited January 26, 2022 by MDM

[StanRohrer]

22 hours ago, MDM said:

 

Open the Actions Panel, choose the action you want to run, pick the command within the action at which you want to start the step by step process and then command-click the run button (arrow) at the bottom of the panel. You have to choose a command within the action - if you start with the title line of the action, then it will just run the entire action as far as I can see. If there are any commands that can't be executed because of the context, it should throw an error. 

If you double-click on any step/command within the Action, it will open and you can change the settings. You may have to enable the Dialog toggle box for some commands to make the edit.