Recently I was given an opportunity to try out some Photoshop Actions from Sleeklens. It is not a company I’ve heard of before, but when they contacted me about their actions it seemed like a good opportunity to try them.
Photoshop Actions for Landscape Photography
The first point that got my attention was that they were for landscape photographers. I can’t tell you how many places I’ve looked at for them and only found ones for portrait photography. I was certainly going to give these a try and see how they would work.
What is an Action
For those of you that don’t know what an action is let me explain. They are like mini programs, you load them up and then when you press play they will do a few processes. It is a bit like your washing machine. You press start and then it adds water, washes, empties, fills again, empties and finally spins. An action works in a similar way, but each one has a different set of stages it will go through. All you have to do is sit back and watch until it finishes or you get a prompt telling you to do something.
I know we are visual people, which is why we do photography, so I am going to do a video to show those that don’t know how, how to load actions and where to find them. I am also going to show you how some of them workYou can purchase the package with this link, Landscape Adventure Collection. They also sell presets for Lightroom and lots of other ones to help with your workflow.
How are Actions helpful
Actions can be great for helping to minimise your workload. I have made several of my own for those things that I do a lot. If you are new to Photoshop actions the ones from Sleeklens can be great to help give you great results. Though, like with anything they should be used carefully and appropriately. If you use one and it makes your image horrible, then don’t use that action for that image.
One thing I do like about these actions is that if you don’t like it it is easy to remove it from the image. It puts all the work it did into a group that you can just delete. When you are working on an image you don’t always know what is and isn’t going to work so it is good to be able to try one, remove it, try another one.
The set of actions you get give you lots of different options for different images. I did enjoy playing with the sunset and sunrise actions. Seeing how you can enhance a sunset was great. I think a lot of people will really like those.
There are quite a few different actions and they are always fun to play with. You can get an idea of the possibilities and you never know there might be one that you really like and want to use all the time.
It should also be pointed out that the actions don’t just add special effects, they can help your images. They can help warm your image or make it cooler. There are actions to help the base image better if the exposure wasn’t quite right. You can work on the shadows, or get more clarity within it. So they aren’t special effects necessarily.
They are also not gaudy or over the top, as some actions I’ve seen can be. You have options within many of them as well. You still feel like you are in control with what is going on.
Where to get them
If you are interested in purchasing their actions then the link for the ones I’m using are:
Landscape Adventure Collection
They also have a number of other actions available too, follow this link to see those.
Photoshop Actions at Sleeklens
I have done a short screencast for you as well so you can see the actions in action, so to speak.
thanks for this great explanation and post.
You’re welcome Cybele.
Nice to hear your voice, Leanne! I don’t use Photoshop but have been thinking lately of upgrading from Lightroom 5 to Adobe’s cloud product that has both Photoshop and Lightroom. And I like those actions — the photos in the video look like places I recently visited in Scotland!
Thank you, I love the creative cloud, been on it for a few years and I love how you always have the updated version. The actions are quite cool, and so easy to use as well.
Are they non destructive and can the effects, once applied, be adjusted?
Yes they are non destructive Sherry and you can remove them if you don’t like them. I thought I said that in the post.
Thanks for sharing Leanne. I’ve never heard of actions before 🙂
You’re welcome, glad to have helped you understand them. 😀
these are quite cool Leanne, thank you for sharing! I really like the craggy mountains and the cabin 🙂
You’re welcome Debi. Thank you.
you’re welcome 🙂