Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom® & Photoshop® Workflow Bible

Chapter 18. Using Photoshop Actions with Lightroom

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Understanding how Photoshop actions and droplets can automate common tasks

• Using droplets to allow Lightroom and Photoshop to work together

One of the most powerful things about Photoshop is one of the least used. I'm referring to the ability to automate just about anything you can do in Photoshop so that you only have to click a button or two to perform specific tasks. There are several automation tools in Photoshop, but the main tool is called an action. A Photoshop action is merely a recording of sequential editing steps that can be played back on any file. Before Lightroom, these actions were the only way to create a workflow-friendly environment when dealing with large numbers of files—especially non-raw files.

In Chapter 9, I mention that Lightroom provides a way to use these powerful actions when exporting files, allowing you to perform the action's editing steps on the files after they're exported. This ability allows you to add editing steps to your workflow that can be done in Photoshop, but not in Lightroom. For example, you could create an action in Photoshop that adds a large copyright symbol to proof files when they're being exported from Lightroom. In this chapter, you look at how that's accomplished. But before you can do that, you need a basic understanding of how actions are created and how they're ordinarily used in Photoshop. Be aware that this is only intended as an introduction to actions and automation ...