We interrupt this blog for a brief commercial message...

If you've ever clicked around on my blog - you may have followed a link over to "The Pioneer Woman" - an incredibly humorous blog writer, great cook, and awesome photographer. I have long admired some of the fun effects that she uses on her photos with something called "Photoshop Actions". She has a bunch of free one's available for download on her site.... only trouble is - I have Photoshop Elements, and sadly for me, her actions don't work on PSE, they only work on the full blown, and very EXPENSIVE Photoshop.

Fast forward to today - I got an email from my favorite digital scrapbooking store - Polka Dot Potato - (that's where I bought the kit that adorns this blog!) - and they have a whole set of Photoshop Actions for sale - and they work on PSE!!!


I couldn't help myself - I downloaded several, and have been playing - I thought I'd show the results, and perhaps tempt you to download and play with some actions yourself!


(What exactly is an "action" you ask? Well, if you ever used Macro's in a word processing document - it's pretty much that - it's a program that executes a series of commands automatically in Photoshop - sometimes it does the whole thing and is done - other actions pause and let you tweak things along the way.)





This one is my favorite - it's called midnight color - and this tiny size hardly does it justice - it makes a great photo into a stunning photo! Just love how it made her hair so rich! It also made the leaves in the background almost appear to be painted!

This one is called EZ Vignette. I actually applied this action to the photo twice - because I wanted it slightly darker than one application creates. I just love how it seems to add depth to the photo


This action is called Contra Soft. Again - hard to see in these little examples - but it softens out all the lines in my mom's face - and heightens the color a bit. This one is not my favorite - or maybe this isnt' the right photo for it - because I found that even though it soften the lines - the colors became harsher. I'll keep playing with this one.

Finally - this is Vivid Color. It's the first one I downloaded and used. The first picture I applied it to - I didn't like it - but this photo - which I already thought was great- I added the effect and WOW! (Isn't my goddaughter cute? And what the heck is all over her face?)

So - have some fun - download some actions and play with your photos!! And if at first you don't succeed - try the action on a different photo! I need to go play with that Contra Soft some more - I think I just haven't found the right photo for it yet!!

(Perhaps instead of commercial message, I should have called this a Public Service Announcement - because I didn't recieve anything for this promotion!)