Four Fabulous Free Action Resources

In this article, I share with you some of my favorite free actions and where to download more that are just as powerful.

1. Pioneer Woman – Photoshop Only

If you’re a blogging photographer and haven’t heard of Ree Drummond, you’ve probably been living under a rock. She’s created two sets of powerful actions which will give you a tremendous amount of versatility in your workload. Doug at Totally Rad Actions helped her create these and it’s evident. Some of her actions effects are indistinguishable from theirs. For example, here’s a photograph with PW’s Heartland action applied to it next to the same photograph using TRA’s Homestead. Taking a look at the layers it creates, they are the same action with different names. I assume TRA gave her permission to do this.

Workflow Savers

Ree definitely has some actions in her collection which produce cool and funky effects, but the ones I go back to over and over again are the ones that save some time in my workflow:

• Quick Edge Burn – This adds a quick vignetting effect. I highly recommend adjusting the opacity and flow on the layer created to get best results.
• Warmer – I run this one a lot. It simply adds a layer with a strong warm hue to it. If I find my photograph is a little on the cool side, I can use this and adjust the opacity until I’m happy. I’m no good at color correction, so any way to make it easy is great for me!
• Cooler – This does the opposite of Warmer. I don’t run it as much, but I’m guessing that’s because my camera shoots on the cool side. (One day I’ll figure out white balance well enough to set my own.)
• Sharpen THIS – Perfect if you want to selectively sharpen a portion of your photograph.

Featured Action: PW’s B&W

This action looks beautiful on almost every portrait I’ve ever applied it to and the layers allow you to customize the results to suit your photo. Here’s the photo above with the PW’s B&W applied:

2. CoffeeShop – Photoshop and Elements

If you’re on a tight budget, but love actions, you must check out Rita’s site. She has so much more to offer than actions! Her actions are just as versatile as the pay actions and can do many of the same things. I’ve seen “Make-Over” action sets sometimes as expensive as $100! They correct skin tones, remove color casts, smooth skin, create a glamorous look, brighten and sharpen eyes, whiten teeth and the like. Well, Rita offers five free retouching actions such as Perfect Portrait and Baby PowderRoom. With these free and professional-grade tools, I’m not sure I could ever be convinced to buy a Make-Over action pack.

One of the few downsides to her actions is that you have to download and load them all individually. This can be a huge pain, but it only takes about two hours to download and organize ALL of her actions. I wrote about my experience and method I used to organize her actions in a previous CoffeeShop review. If you download the actions as you need or want them, it’s a lot easier to organize as you go.

Featured Action: Baby PowderRoom

I use this action all the time. I prefer it to Perfect Portrait because out of the box, it doesn’t make any changes to my photo. Perfect Portrait does a color pop and vignetting that I typically don’t care for, though both those layers can be hidden.

Baby PowderRoom includes a layer for Red Skin Repair, Smooth Skin, Lighten Skin, Skin Glow, Eye Define and Bright Eyes (which I also use to whiten teeth if needed). To use, simply paint the effect onto the layer mask using a soft white brush. I use about 70% opacity for the smooth skin and around 20-30% for the rest. I also use the Eye Define layer to paint over lips or other details I want sharpened. The Red Skin Repair layer works a little differently, but removes blemishes and color casts well! For full instructions on how to use this action and to download it, check out Rita’s Baby PowderRoom page.

3. Paint the Moon – Photoshop and Elements

Annie primarily sells actions, but she has some First Class Freebies available on her site as well. The title is true to its name. Her actions are next on my wish list! One thing I love about good Photoshop actions is having full control over the layers to customize the results. Unlike most other action makers, Annie pays close attention to her layer names and this makes the process of customization even easier!

I have three freebie sets: Refresh, Sweet Treats and Bee’s Knees. Unfortunately Bee’s Knees is off the shelf for the moment, but Annie’s reassured me that she will be rotating through freebies and there will always be at least two sets available.

Featured Action: Sugar Cookies

This is one of my favorites and adds a warm, milky antique look to the photograph. Here, I love how much it brings out the brownness in Mr. Serious’ eyes and detail in his hair!

4. My Four Hens – Photoshop and Elements

I just found Sarah’s site recently through Clickin Moms. Like Annie, she’s a photographer who sells actions on her site. I am amazed at the amount of high quality Freebies she has to offer! A lot of her actions produce a creamy, antique or vintage hazy look and are perfect to apply to your precious memories. I tried out all of her actions on one of my flower photos and they all looked great! Here are a few examples:

Sarah’s written a wonderful inspirational guide to using her actions. They’re incredibly powerful! In addition to suggesting that you tweak the layers, she also gives an awesome tip and example of using color balance adjustment layers to make the most out of her actions! The article is a must read even if you don’t have any of her stuff since the principles can be applied to any action.

Featured Action: Pretty Hazy

Many of my very favorite actions are ones where you press the button, all this stuff happens and when it’s done, your photograph looks exactly the same. That may sound nutty, but usually there’s a plethora of layers for me to activate and play with as I please. That’s the case for CoffeeShop’s Baby PowderRoom and it’s also the same for M4H’s Pretty Hazy. This action gives you the power to apply a hazy vintage look to polish your finished photograph. It creates a group of over 10 different layers which are not active by default. You can enable any that you want, in any combination, set to any opacity level to customize the results exactly to your liking!

Yes, this action is new to me, but we’re going to get along just fine!

Here are the layers and opacities I used for the example below: Fresh Haze: 86%; Grey Haze: 85%; Pumpkin Haze: 55%; Dew Drop Haze: 100%.

5. Bonus Resource! MCP Actions – Photoshop and Elements

Okay, so I felt bad leaving you with only four free resources. I’ve purchased several actions at MCP Actions, however some of Jodi’s most useful stuff is free! I didn’t want to truly highlight her as a free resource because her free offerings aren’t as plentiful or versatile as Paint the Moon or My Four Hens. For free though, these actions can’t be beat!

• Texture Applicator – As you know, I love textures. They’re easy enough to apply manually but I love this action because it names the layer with the texture’s file name. This walks you through changing the layer’s blending mode, but I found that very annoying. I edited the action so it would apply the texture file and stop after setting the blending mode to Overlay at 45%. From there I tweak manually.
• High Definition Sharpening – This also includes a web resizing/sharpening action which is great. I use one or the other for almost all my photos even though I have about a million other MCP actions to sharpen that I paid for.
• Touch of Light / Touch of Darkness – A great tool to lighten or darken certain areas of your photograph (also known as dodging and burning) without altering the background layer (the actual photograph itself).
• Burnt Edges Vignetting – I haven’t tried this one myself, but it looks like it’s a good alternative for Pioneer Woman’s Quick Edge Burn.

The Take-Away and a Challenge!

I love playing in Photoshop and I’m not ashamed to admit I’ve spent up to an hour editing one photograph by applying different actions to it and tweaking them to see what would happen. It is so easy to get carried away or overdo the effect. When editing with actions, it’s good to keep two things in mind:

1. Less is more. Is your image too saturated? Too much vignetting? Too bright? Try using less of an effect to deliver more of a punch.
2. Is the photograph better off with the action applied? I can’t tell you how much I sit there toggling the eyeball, turning the layer off and on to see if the adjustments made truly enhance the photograph. Turning layers on and off (or turning them up to 100% and off) is also a great way to help you figure out exactly what that layer is doing.

Now, I want to see what you can do with free actions! What are your favorite free resources or actions? Please write or link to a blog post where you’re discussing your favorites including before and afters and add your link below!