Turn back time for a stylish retro look

Use your free Actions to apply cool, retro effects to any picture, then get your shot ready for a high-quality print in one click

Actions are custom scripts or mini-programs that automatically stack a bunch of imageadjustments or filter commands together, and execute them in lightning-fast time. This means the kinds of stylised treatments and imaging effects that could take ages to create and fine-tune manually can be conjured up with one mouse click.

Actions have several advantages for the times when you want to give a photo a new look, or take it in a new creative direction. The benefit of having a complete set that’s ready‑made is not only the joy of applying a broad variety of different effects really fast, it’s also the chance to generate new looks you’d simply never have thought of.

On this issue’s download is a set of exclusive custom-made Actions called Retro Chic. As the name implies, they will take your shots back in time to add a real sense of nostalgia. From romantic, soft-focus finishes to hard-edged, gritty mono, and from cinematic colour grades to desaturated, vintage vibes, the imaging treatments are all about amplifying the emotional appeal of your pics in an old-school way.

Load your new Actions

In the Gifts folder of this issue’s download is a file called DCM 250 Retro Chic.atn. Drag this to somewhere easy to find on your computer so it copies over. Remember where you’ve put it (such as the Desktop), then open Photoshop CC. Once it’s up on screen, go to Window > Actions to bring up the Actions Panel.

You’ll see an icon with four lines in the top-right. Click on this then, from the list that appears, select Load Actions. In the window that opens, navigate to where you put the DC 250 Retro Chic.atn file, and double-click on it to load the Actions into the panel. They’ll appear underneath the Default Actions folder, and any other Actions you’ve installed. Click on the arrow to the left of the file name to expand the folder and see the individual Actions.

Try out the Actions

Leave the Actions Panel on-screen, and go to File > Open. Find an image you want to use, and open it in Photoshop. When it appears on the screen, go back to the Actions Panel and select the Action you want to use by clicking on it. I’ve chosen Soft & Warm in this example.

At the bottom of the Actions panel, click the Play Selection button (the right-facing triangle). The Action runs automatically and applies the new look to your picture. How long it takes to process depends on how many steps the Action contains and your computer, but normally it should just be a few seconds.

Save the results

All of the Retro Chic Actions result in flattened files, so the photo you’ve enhanced is turned into a single Background layer at the end. This makes the process quick and easy, but – assuming you want to keep the new-look image – you must remember to save it using a new file name, otherwise you’ll write over the original.

To save, go to File > Save As, then click Save A Copy. To keep the image quality high, select JPEG as the format, then set Quality to Level 10 (or higher). Once you’ve renamed and saved your new-look shot, you can press Ctrl/Cmd+Z repeatedly to backtrack through the steps in the Action. Once you arrive back at your original shot, pick another Action, and make another picture!

Take a quick path to perfect prints

If you want to resize and present your picture so it’s ready for printing at A4 or A3, there are four Actions at the bottom of the set that will do this in a single click. These display your image with a neat white border around the edge, and resize your shot to the dimensions of A4 or A3 paper. The resolution is set to 300 pixels per inch, so they’ll be all ready to make a high-quality print.

Once you’ve got the creative look you want from one of the Actions, just click on the A3 or A4 Action to get the size you want, and pick the orientation to match your picture (Horizontal or Vertical). Now click the Play Selection button, and your photo will be swiftly resized, and framed with a neat white margin.