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Adobe Photoshop CC Bootcamp

Lesson 79 of 118

Conditional Actions

 

Adobe Photoshop CC Bootcamp

Lesson 79 of 118

Conditional Actions

 

Lesson Info

Conditional Actions

The next thing we're gonna do is we're gonna make what's called a conditional action. And a conditional action is just like it sounds. It's an if this then that. So I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna do something pretty clever here, just to separate what's happening from here and here and this is also another good practice, is to make an action in here that's called image size. And what I'm gonna do on this purposely, is I'm just gonna do something like this and then I'm gonna do at the very end and then press record, but guess what? I'm not gonna record anything. What I was doing there was just separating the fact that we have a curves dodge and burn from the rest of what I'm about to do. This is what I call a placeholder. All it's doing, it's not even going to be an action, we don't even want it to play anything, it's just a placeholder to divide it. Because what happens is, if you make an actions pack, whether it's for you or if it's for somebody else, and you get 40 actions in here, ...

you're gonna go, like, cross-eyed looking at where, where are these actions, they're all over the place, which one do I check, which one do I select? Because they're, you won't be able to find the ones that you wanna find. The minute you put page breaks in here like this, it allows you to go from one to the next without trying to dig through all of your actions. So now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna make a new action. I'm gonna make an action that does an image resize that's gonna resize the image if it's horizontal. So I'm gonna go make a new action and we'll do horizontal resize and we'll just call this 1,200. Actually let's do it smaller, let's do on how big this image is. Press record. Now I'm gonna go to Image and go to Image Size and I'm gonna change the width of this to 800 pixels. Basically what I'm doing is I'm making an action that's gonna resize my image and make it smaller, maybe for the web, make it for something that's a little bit easier, and then press OK. And then I'm gonna press stop, because all I needed that to do if we go back in our history states here, all I needed that to do was just resize my image, just make it smaller for the web, okay? So I'm gonna go back, now I'm gonna make another one. Let's do this. Let's make a duplicate of this with our history state, let's crop this and make it vertical, just a vertical image like this. You'll see why in a second. So now I'm gonna record an action on this one and it's gonna be vertical resize, we'll just call it 800 also. I'm gonna go to Image, Image Size, change the height to 800, OK, stop. So all I've done there is I made two actions, one that's a horizontal resize and one that's a vertical resize. So now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna make a conditional action and the conditional action is gonna be smart enough to assess the image that I have based on the parameters that I tell it to assess and select the appropriate action based on what I'm telling it to. So I'm gonna go ahead and press Insert Conditional, actually let me do this, I'm gonna make a new action and that new action's gonna be called Master Resize. Here I'm gonna Insert Conditional. If the current document is landscape, then play this, else play this, okay? So if the current document is a landscape, a landscape-based image, select horizontal, or else play vertical, press OK and then stop. And all it's gonna record in there is an if this then that statement. So if I open up this image here and I press, ooh, and I press play on that master resize, it's automatically gonna assess the image and automatically make it smaller. If I press play on this one, automatically resize that image, automatically make it smaller. So it's a conditional action. Now if for some reason though, this is really important to know, what I would do with these is probably put some kind of star there or something, maybe three stars, I don't know what that looks like to you, but watch what happens if I open up a new folder, a new action set and call this Other Actions and I take this master resize outta here and I put it in here and I press play. It's still gonna work (laughing), it shouldn't have. What happens here is if, if for instance, this actions folder is not present on my machine it will not work, because what this is doing is it's saying, and we can read this here actually and see why it's still working, if the current document is landscape then play this action, the action is horizontal resize of set CL actions lesson. So let's just, before I do this I'm gonna go ahead and cover myself. Any time you make actions it's a really good idea to save them, this right here, this whole panel right here in Photoshop is a temporary spot and it's kinda held within the cache. So if the cache within Photoshop dumps you will lose everything you built here, okay? That's, like, start writing this down. So what we wanna do is we have CL actions lesson, we're gonna click on the hamburger icon and we're gonna save Save Actions. Just save them. Photoshop will automatically put them where Photoshop's presets are for actions and press Save. That's all you need to do to ensure that you always have these actions and they don't go away when the cache gets purged. So now if I were to delete these actions, delete 'em, and then click on this action, watch what happens. Boom, that's what I was looking for. The command If is not currently available, why is the command If not currently available? Well that's because this action has to have those other actions to interact with it. If those actions aren't there it won't work. So we don't wanna break them apart, we wanna keep them together, we always want to keep them together because they interact with one another. So we'll go ahead and press stop. And I'm gonna go ahead and just, right here, if you ever wanna load your actions, right here we can go to Load Actions and there's our actions. This is also, if you ever wanna deliver these actions to somebody else, maybe you have a friend you wanna give them to or you wanna start selling 'em, this is the action that you're gonna want to disperse to the masses. So you could copy that to your desktop or wherever you wanna put that, that's your action. So I'm just gonna go ahead and load this and now we have that CL actions there. I'm gonna go ahead and drag this master resize back into this one and I can go ahead and delete that folder set. So now they're all back together, they're all comfy, they're all back together, they're all happy.

Class Description

Adobe® Photoshop CC® is a valuable tool for photographers, but it can also be intimidating. In this all-inclusive 20 lesson course, you’ll go from opening the program for the first time to creating images that really stand out. Join Blake Rudis, Photoshop expert and founder of f64 Academy, as he shows you how to maximize your use of Photoshop. 

Topics covered will include:

  • Class Introduction & Bridge, Adobe Camera Raw, Setup Interface, Cropping and Layers
  • Layer Tools, Masks, Selections, Clean-Up Tools and Shapes & Text
  • Smart Objects, Transforming, Actions, Filters, and Editing Video
  • Custom Creative Effects, Natural Retouching, Portrait Workflow, Landscape Workflow, and Composite Workflow

Don’t let the many aspects of Photoshop prevent you from maximizing your use of this amazing app. Blake will help you develop the confidence to use your imagination and create the images that you will be proud to share with your clients.


SOFTWARE USED:

Adobe Photoshop CC 2018

Lessons

  1. Bootcamp Introduction
  2. The Bridge Interface
  3. Setting up Bridge
  4. Overview of Bridge
  5. Practical Application of Bridge
  6. Introduction to Raw Editing
  7. Setting up ACR Preferences & Interface
  8. Global Tools Part 1
  9. Global Tools Part 2
  10. Local Tools
  11. Introduction to the Photoshop Interface
  12. Toolbars, Menus and Windows
  13. Setup and Interface
  14. Adobe Libraries
  15. Saving Files
  16. Introduction to Cropping
  17. Cropping for Composition in ACR
  18. Cropping for Composition in Photoshop
  19. Cropping for the Subject in Post
  20. Cropping for Print
  21. Perspective Cropping in Photoshop
  22. Introduction to Layers
  23. Vector & Raster Layers Basics
  24. Adjustment Layers in Photoshop
  25. Organizing and Managing Layers
  26. Introduction to Layer Tools and Blend Modes
  27. Screen and Multiply and Overlay
  28. Soft Light Blend Mode
  29. Color and Luminosity Blend Modes
  30. Color Burn and Color Dodge Blend Modes
  31. Introduction to Layer Styles
  32. Practical Application: Layer Tools
  33. Introduction to Masks and Brushes
  34. Brush Basics
  35. Custom Brushes
  36. Brush Mask: Vignettes
  37. Brush Mask: Curves Dodge & Burn
  38. Brush Mask: Hue & Saturation
  39. Mask Groups
  40. Clipping Masks
  41. Masking in Adobe Camera Raw
  42. Practical Applications: Masks
  43. Introduction to Selections
  44. Basic Selection Tools
  45. The Pen Tool
  46. Masks from Selections
  47. Selecting Subjects and Masking
  48. Color Range Mask
  49. Luminosity Masks Basics
  50. Introduction to Cleanup Tools
  51. Adobe Camera Raw
  52. Healing and Spot Healing Brush
  53. The Clone Stamp Tool
  54. The Patch Tool
  55. Content Aware Move Tool
  56. Content Aware Fill
  57. Custom Cleanup Selections
  58. Introduction to Shapes and Text
  59. Text Basics
  60. Shape Basics
  61. Adding Text to Pictures
  62. Custom Water Marks
  63. Introduction to Smart Objects
  64. Smart Object Basics
  65. Smart Objects and Filters
  66. Smart Objects and Image Transformation
  67. Smart Objects and Album Layouts
  68. Smart Objects and Composites
  69. Introduction to Image Transforming
  70. ACR and Lens Correction
  71. Photoshop and Lens Correction
  72. The Warp Tool
  73. Perspective Transformations
  74. Introduction to Actions in Photoshop
  75. Introduction to the Actions Panel Interface
  76. Making Your First Action
  77. Modifying Actions After You Record Them
  78. Adding Stops to Actions
  79. Conditional Actions
  80. Actions that Communicate
  81. Introduction to Filters
  82. ACR as a Filter
  83. Helpful Artistic Filters
  84. Helpful Practical Filters
  85. Sharpening with Filters
  86. Rendering Trees
  87. The Oil Paint and Add Noise Filters
  88. Introduction to Editing Video
  89. Timeline for Video
  90. Cropping Video
  91. Adjustment Layers and Video
  92. Building Lookup Tables
  93. Layers, Masking Video & Working with Type
  94. ACR to Edit Video
  95. Animated Gifs
  96. Introduction to Creative Effects
  97. Black, White, and Monochrome
  98. Matte and Cinematic Effects
  99. Gradient Maps and Solid Color Grades
  100. Gradients
  101. Glow and Haze
  102. Introduction to Natural Retouching
  103. Brightening Teeth
  104. Clean Up with the Clone Stamp Tool
  105. Cleaning and Brightening Eyes
  106. Advanced Clean Up Techniques
  107. Introduction to Portrait Workflow & Bridge Organization
  108. ACR for Portraits Pre-Edits
  109. Portrait Workflow Techniques
  110. Introduction to Landscape Workflow & Bridge Organization
  111. Landscape Workflow Techniques
  112. Introduction to Compositing & Bridge
  113. Composite Workflow Techniques
  114. Landscape Composite Projects
  115. Bonus: Rothko and Workspace
  116. Bonus: Adding Textures to Photos
  117. Bonus: The Mask (Extras)
  118. Bonus: The Color Range Mask in ACR

Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

Amazing course, but don't be fooled into thinking this is a beginner's course for photographers. The problem isn't Blake's explanations; they're top. The problem is the vast scope of this course and the order in which the topics are presented. Take layers for example. When I was first learning Photoshop (back when we learned from books), I found I learned little or nothing from, for example, books that covered layers before they covered how to improve/process photographs. These books taught me how to organize, move, and link layers before they showed me what a layer was actually for. Those books tended to teach me everything there is to know about layers (types of layers, how to organize them, how to move them, how to move them two at a time, how to move them two at a time even if there are other layers between the two you're interested in, useful troubleshooting tips, etc. ) all before I even know (from a photographer's point of view) what it is the things actually do. The examples of organizing, linking, and moving mean everything for graphic designers from Day One, but for photographers not so much. Blake does the same thing as those books. Topics he covers extremely early demand a lot of theoretical imagination for a photographer who doesn't already know quite a bit about what he is talking about. Learning about abstract things first and concrete things later only makes PS that much harder to understand. If you AREN'T a beginner, however, this course is amazing. I thought it would be like an Army Bootcamp, taking you from zero and building you into a fit, competent Photoshop grunt. Now I think it's more like Army Bootcamp for high school varsity jocks. It isn't going to take you from the beginning, but the amount you'll get out of it is nonetheless more than your brain can imagine. I've been using PS for years to improve my photographs, and even to create the odd artistic composite or two. The amount I've learned in the first week is amazing, and every day I learn something -- more like many things -- which I immediately implement to improve my productivity and/or widen the horizons of what I can achieve. If you ARE a photographer who's a Photoshop beginner, I'd take very seriously the advice Blake gives in the introduction: Watch one lesson, and practice the skills and principles you learn in that one lesson for two weeks. THEN watch the next lesson. You can't do that of course without buying the course, so it's up to you to decide whether you'd like to learn Photoshop and master Photoshop all from the same course. Learning it first and mastering it later will cost more money, but I think you'll understand everything better and have a much more enjoyable ride in the process. As for me? I'm going to have to find the money to buy this course. There is simply way too much content in each lesson for me to try to take on all at once, but on the other hand I don't want to miss anything at all that he has to share.

Esther Gambrell
 

WOW!!! I've been purchasing CL classes for several years now and have watched HOURS of "How-To Photoshop" classes, but this is the first one I've actually purchased because of the AWESOME BONUS content!!! SERIOUSLY??!!?!? A PLUG-IN??? But not only that, Blake is SO easy to understand, and he breaks down concepts in different ways to connect with different people's learning styles. I REALLY appreciated this approach because I am a LEFT-BRAINED creative that has an engineering background, so I really connected to what Blake was saying. THANK YOU FOR THAT! There are TONS of Photoshop courses out there, but I found this one to be the most helpful in they way Blake teaches concepts so that you know WHY you're doing what your doing. I feel like he taught me how to fish with Photoshop to feed me for a lifetime instead of just giving me a fish to feed me for one day. This is the BEST overall PS course out there!!! Thank you!!!!

Sonya Messier
 

I'm been using Bridge, Adobe Raw and Photoshop for 12 years. I thought I knew those programs until I started to follow Blake and do this Photoshop CC Bootcamp. This course is AMAZING. I love the way Blake teach, brakes down concepts and tools... excellent teaching qualities! I'm half way in this course and I change all my workflow already. Much better results and better use of what Adobe offer me. This course is an investment! When I will be done, I will listen it again. Great job and congratulations on your success Blake!