We've covered a lot of information so far in our look at Photoshop actions. We've learned what an action is and that actions are stored in action sets. We've looked at the Actions palette and the palette menu. We've explored the default actions that Photoshop automatically loads for us, and we've seen how to load the additional action sets that install with Photoshop. We know that Photoshop can run through an entire action from beginning to end completely on its own, or it can pop open dialog boxes which give us the chance to change various command options and settings to better suit the image we're working on. And we've learned how to twirl open an action in the Actions palette so we can view the specific steps involved, right down to the details of each step.

A moment ago, we ran the Photo Corners action, which is found in the Frames action set, on an image and we ended up with a very basic photo corners effect. I wasn't too thrilled with the colors that the action used, though, so I'd like to edit the action and choose different colors. To do that, I'll first need to figure out which steps in the action are responsible for setting the colors it uses.

We've already learned how to view the individual steps, as well as the details of those steps, in the Actions palette, but an even better way of figuring out exactly what's going on with an action is to take the action one step at a time. And when I say "take" it one step at a time, I mean "play" it one step at a time! You simply start at the beginning of the action and play each step individually while keeping an eye on your image and on the Layers palette to see what just happened!

Unfortunately, Adobe didn't include an obvious way of stepping through an action like this. There is no "Play Single Step" button anywhere to be found. To play a single step in an action, hold down your Ctrl (Win) / Command (Mac) key on your keyboard and double-click on the step in the Actions palette. This will play the step you double-clicked on and advance you to the next step in the Actions palette. If you keep an eye on your image and on the Layers palette, you'll be able to see exactly what's happening. Let's work our way through the Photo Corners action one step at a time to see exactly how Photoshop creates the frame effect and to learn which steps we'll need to edit to change the colors it uses. This also gives us a chance to see what sort of things we can record as part of an action, although there's lots more we can do than what we'll find here.

Before I begin, I'm going to revert my image back to its original state by going up to the File menu at the top of the screen and choosing Revert:

This returns my photo back to the way it looked before running the action:

If I look in my Layers palette, I can see that I'm back to having only one layer, the Background layer, which contains my image:

Step 1: Make snapshot

Let's begin working our way through the Photo Corners action one step at a time so we can see exactly what Photoshop is doing. With the Photo Corners action twirled open in the Actions palette, I'll hold down my Ctrl (Win) / Command (Mac) key on the keyboard and double-click on the very first step, Make snapshot:

The "Make snapshot" step takes a snapshot of the current state of the image and places it in the History palette. This way, if we want to revert back to the way the image looked immediately before running the action, we can simply switch over to the History palette and click on the snapshot. After playing this step, switch to your History palette for a moment. You'll see the snapshot, named "Snapshot 1", at the top of the palette:

Step 2: Convert Mode

Switch back to your Actions palette when you're done. Let's move on to the second step in the action, Convert Mode. I can't really tell just from the name of this step what it's going to do, so I'll twirl it open to view the details:

With the details of the step visible, I can see that all this second step does is converts the image to the RGB color mode. Well, my image is already in the RGB color mode, and yours probably is, too, so this second step isn't really necessary. I'm going to skip it for now, but later, when we go to actually edit the action, we'll learn how to turn individual steps on and off.

Step 3: Duplicate current layer

The third step in the Photo Corners action is Duplicate current layer. I'll select the step, then twirl it open so we can view the details:

It looks like this third step in the action is going to create a duplicate of the Background layer (since the Background layer is our only layer at the moment), and it's going to name the new layer "photo corners". Let's see what happens. I'll hold down Ctrl (Win) / Command (Mac) and double-click on the step to play it. If I look in my Layers palette after playing the step, I can see that I now have two layers. The new layer (the one on top) is a duplicate of the Background layer, and Photoshop named it "photo corners", exactly as we expected:

Step 4: Transform current layer

As we make our way through the individual steps of the Photo Corners action, we come to the fourth step, Transform current layer. I'll twirl open the step in the Actions palette and with the details now visible, it looks like this step is going to use Photoshop's Transform command to scale the image on the "photo corners" layer down to 95% of it's original size:

I'll play the step by Ctrl+double-clicking (Win) / Command+double-clicking (Mac) on it, and while nothing appears to have happened in the Layers palette, I can see if I look at my document window that the image on the "photo corners" layer has in fact been made smaller, while the original image below it on the Background layer remains full size:

So far, no sign of the step that controls the colors in the frame effect, but we're getting a good sense of how the action was put together. Let's carry on.

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