STEP BY STEP GIVE AN IMAGE A VINTAGE FEEL

Discover how you can add a sense of nostalgia to your photographs in mere seconds

01 LOAD YOUR NEW ACTIONS

In this issue’s free download is a file ‘Retro Chic.atn’. Drag this to somewhere safe on your computer so it copies over. Remember where you put it (such as the Desktop), then open Photoshop CC. 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 and from the list that appears, select Load Actions. In the new window, navigate to where you put the ‘Retro Chic.atn’ file, and double-click on it to load the Actions into the panel. They appear beneath the Default Actions folder and any other Actions you’ve installed. Click on the arrow to the left of the filename to expand the folder and see the individual Actions.

02 TRY OUT THE ACTIONS

Leave the Actions panel on your screen and go to File>open. Find an image that 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. We’ve chosen the Soft & Warm Action 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 the processing power of your computer, but normally the job should just take a few seconds from start to finish.

03 SAVE THE RESULTS

All 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 filename, otherwise you write over the original. 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.

04 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 do this in a single click. These display your image with a neat white border and resize your shot to the dimensions of A4 or A3 paper. The resolution is set to 300 pixels per inch, so they are 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 image (Horizontal or Vertical). Now click the Play Selection button, and your photo is swiftly resized and framed with a neat white margin.