Deleting A Step In An Action

Let's begin editing our "Improved Photo Corners" action. The first thing I'm going to do is delete the very first step, "Make snapshot". If you recall, this step takes a snapshot of the state of the image just before the action is played so that we can easily undo the action by simply clicking on the snapshot in the History palette. I'll click on this step to select it:

Since I'll most likely be running this action on an image immediately after opening it in Photoshop, I don't think there's really any need for a snapshot since I could just as easily select the Revert option from the File menu at the top of the screen to revert the image back to the way it appeared when I opened it. I'll just go ahead then and delete this step. To delete a step in an action, all you need to do is click on it and drag it down on to the Trash Bin icon at the bottom of the Actions palette:

The "Make snapshot" step has now been deleted:

I'm also going to delete the "Reset Swatches" step from the action, since we won't be needing that one either. Another way to delete a step is to click on it in the Actions palette to select then, then hold down your Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) key and simply click on the Trash Bin icon at the bottom of the palette:

If you click on the Trash Bin without holding down Alt/Option, Photoshop pops up a dialog box first asking if you want to delete the step. Holding down Alt/Option avoids the dialog box.

Turning Steps On And Off

Sometimes, rather than deleting a step entirely, you'll simply want Photoshop to ignore it. This is usually a better alternative than deleting a step unless you know for certain that the step is not and will not ever be needed. The Actions palette gives us a way to turn individual steps off without deleting them by clicking on the small checkmark to the left of a step. With the checkmark visible, the step will be played as part of the action. When you click on a checkmark, it disappears leaving an empty box in its place and the step will be ignored.

If I look at my action in the Actions palette, I can see that the first step is now "Convert Mode", which, if you remember from our step-by-step journey through the Photo Corners action, converts the image into the RGB color mode. The reason this step is included is because not all of Photoshop's commands, filters and other options are available to us when working on an image in a different color mode like CMYK or Lab. Also, colors can appear differently when working in these other modes, especially CMYK. However, since the chances are very high that any image we're working on in Photoshop will already be in the RGB color mode, this step can usually be skipped. Of course, there's always the chance that you'll be working on an image in a different color mode, so rather than deleting the step completely, let's just turn it off.

To turn off the "Convert Mode" step and tell Photoshop to skip it until I decide to turn it back on again, I'll simply click on the checkmark to the left of the step. The checkmark will disappear, leaving an empty square in its place:

The next time I run this action, Photoshop will ignore the "Convert Mode" step and carry on with the rest of the action. To turn a step back on, just click inside the empty square to make the checkmark visible once again.

Turn All Steps On Or Off At Once

If you want to turn every step in an action on or off at once, simply click on the checkmark to the left of the action's name in the Actions palette. When the checkmark is red, as it is at the moment, it means that some of the steps in the action are currently turned on while others are turned off. In our case, the "Convert Mode" step is turned off while all other steps are turned on. When the checkmark is gray, it means that all of the steps are currently turned on. And when the checkmark is not visible, it means that all of the steps in the action are currently turned off:

Changing An Existing Step In An Action

We've seen how to delete a step from an action, as well as how to temporarily turn steps on or off. Now let's look at how to change a step. Before we do, it's important to note that unfortunately, not all steps in an action can be easily changed. If a step involves setting options in a dialog box, which is what we'll be looking at here, then yes, you can make changes to the step by changing the options in the dialog box. If not, you'll need to delete the step, then re-record it. We'll see how to add steps to an action once we've looked at how to make changes to a step that uses a dialog box.

There's two steps in this action that I want to change. Both are named "Fill", and both control the colors used in the frame effect. If you recall from when we played through the action one step at a time, the first Fill step controls the color used for the background. Let's look at this step again. I'll twirl it open so we can view the details:

At the moment, this step will fill the "new background" layer with gray, using Photoshop's Fill command. I wasn't too happy with the gray that it used, so I want to choose a different color. Now, I have a couple of choices here. I can specify an exact color to use every time I run the action, or I can tell Photoshop to bring up the Fill command's dialog box when it plays the action so I can choose a different color each time. Let's try choosing a specific color first.

To edit a step in an action (again, this only works for steps that involve dialog boxes), simply double-click on the step in the Actions palette. I'll double-click directly on the Fill step, and as soon as I do, Photoshop pops up the Fill dialog box and we can see that it's currently set to fill the layer with 50% gray, which is the shade of gray midway between black and white:

I think I want to use white for my background color with this frame effect, so I'll select White from the drop-down box instead:

I'll click OK in the dialog box to accept the change and exit out of it, but as soon as I do, Photoshop actually plays the step and fills my document window with white:

To undo the step that Photoshop has played, all I need to do is go up to the Edit menu at the top of the screen and choose Undo (in this case, it will say Undo Fill), or I can use the keyboard shortcut, Ctrl+Z (Win) / Command+Z (Mac). Either way takes me back to the way the image looked before the step was played.

And now, if I look at the details of the step in the Actions palette, I can see that the layer will no longer be filled with gray. Instead, it will be filled with white:

I'm going to do the same thing with the second Fill step, which controls the color used for the actual photo corners. I'll scroll down to it in the Actions palette, then twirl it open so we can see the details:

As we see by looking at the details of the step, it's currently set to fill the four photo corners with the background color. We've already deleted the "Reset Swatches" step which would have reset the background color to white, so let's set a specific color to use. I'll double-click on the step in the Actions palette to edit it, and the Fill dialog box pops up once again, this time set to use the current background color:

This time, I think I'll choose black as the color for my photo corners, so I'll select Black from the list:

I'll click OK to accept the change and exit out of the dialog box, and once again, Photoshop plays the step, filling my document window with black:

I'll undo the step that Photoshop played using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Z (Win) / Command+Z (Mac), and now if I look at the details of the step in the Actions palette, I can see that the photo corners will now be filled with black instead of the background color:

Let's play the action now and see what it looks like with our new colors! I'll use a different photo this time just to keep things interesting. To play the action, I'll click on it in the Actions palette to select it and then click on the Play icon at the bottom of the palette:

Here's the image after running the Improved Photo Corners frame effect action. Notice how the background is now white and the photo corners are black thanks to the changes we made:

I would say that's a definite improvement over the colors used by the original Photo Corners action. But what if I don't always want white as my background color and black as the color of the photo corners? Do I have to make a new copy of the action and edit it each time I want different colors? Of course not! We'll just tell Photoshop to pop open the Fill dialog boxes for us so we can choose a new color each time the action plays!