Ready for
Elements 7!
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Over 40 Glamourous Photo Effect actions for Photoshop Elements :: Updated and ready for Photoshop Elements 7.0

The Glam Photo Action Set contains 40+ actions made especially for Photoshop Elements (any version). The self-installer will extract the actions, generate thumbnails, and load them up the next time you start Elements. Each action has been carefully scripted to work especially with Photoshop Elements, and the effects themselves are intended to be used as either an end result or as a starting point for further enhancement.

Some effects that may not look like much on their own are incredibly useful for setting a mood, creating an atmosphere, or for the beginning of a photo manipulation. The "Extreme" effects (Extreme Contrast and Extreme Color), for example, can be flattened and moved on top of an image with the Glamour 6 effect, and the opacity and blend can be adjusted for truly stunning effects. Also, several effects can be run right on top of each other: the Soften effect is a good example of this. Run it three or four or more times to get a gorgeous "dreamy" effect.

The example above, for instance, is the Neon effect, flattened, and brought in as a new layer over the original. The Neon Blend mode was changed to Soft Light to get the effect. The example to the right uses the Pop Streak effect, flattened, and loaded on top of the original and changed to a Hard Light blend.

More samples from this action pack can be found here, or take a look at the slideshow down below:

Once installed, look for them in your Effects palette, in the Glam Photo submenu.  In Photoshop Elements 7, they’ll also appear in the Actions Player, in Guided Edit mode.

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Anew Sampler Pack for Photoshop Elements 7 (Windows-only) is now ready for free download. This pack contains a single effect from each of the full Graficalicus Action Packs: B&W Lab, FunFotoFX, Glam Photo, Handy Actions and Sketchy Paint. The download includes the installer and an information sheet.

The action effects included are Enlarge 110%, Old Romance, Soft Black & White, Weaver, and Sketch, from the full pack they represent. Samples of each action are scattered around this post.

New for Elements 7: The new generation of action packs also are placed in the new Actions Player, in Photoshop Elements’ Guided Edit mode. Special modified actions are inserted here to keep the workflow moving along.

All of the action packs have been upgraded to be Photoshop Elements 7-compatible, and install just as seamlessly as all earlier versions.

So if you’ve wondered about how easily and quickly the effect packs install into Photoshop Elements and were a bit hesitant about giving them a try, this is a good chance to see for yourself how they work. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed - each of the actions here are a representative of how the other Graffi action packs install themselves, and will demonstrate the one-click process. If you have both Elements 6 & 7 installed on your system, the installer will prompt you as to which version of Elements you want to add the actions to. New for Elements 7: A special version of these actions is also added to the "Actions Player", which you’ll find in the Guided Edit mode of the Photoshop Elements Editor workspace.

*Also, don’t forget to grab the Handy Actions Lite add-on action Transform Selection, which can be downloaded for free from this post. The Elements 6/7 version includes an installer for convenience, but there’s also an Elements 5 version that can be added manually, or with the assistance of Add-O-Matic.

The screenshot to the left shows how and where this pack will show up in Elements, and the shot to right is a screen grab of the interface - like it shows, just click "Install ‘em" and it’ll do all the work for you in just a matter of seconds.

Remember - if you like these actions, the rest of the Action Packs install just as easily, and offer a huge variety of effects, adjustments, add-on utilities and other goodies for Photoshop Elements.

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Anotheroldie-but-goodie. The High Key effect is pretty simpe to achieve, and the technique has been around for years, but it never fails to generate interest and emails.

This one is a snap from a few years ago - the background was dark, so I started by lightening it (as well as adding a bit of blur to it, for more of a narrow depth of field effect).

*Note that it requires Handy Actions 3, or an action that will select just the highlights of your image and place them on a new layer.

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The Graffi Bundle Packs are on sale for both Photoshop Elements 5 and 6 - at whopping 33%, too. This is a great way to grab all of the action sets at once: Handy Actions 3, B&W Lab 3, Glam Photo 3, Fun Foto FX 3, and Sketchy-Paint 3 as well as the ever-popular Add-O-Matic. The bundle includes over 240 actions for the Elements 6 version and a staggering 257 actions for the Elements 5 version! (By the way, the Elements 5 version also installs to PSE 3 & 4, too.)

(Unfortunately for Mac folks, the installers are for Windows. Contact me, though, and I can send a “Mac Pack” to you with the install instructions.)

There have been some minor tweaks to each of the packs over the past few weeks. No new actions or effects have been added, but some coding changes were made on the inside. Now they’ll install even more seamlessly than before, especially with Photoshop Elements 6 and its particular database & .xml requirements.

To celebrate (at least I’m celebrating until Elements 7 is released), these action effect packs especially made for Photoshop Elements (which sell separately for over $70) are now going for $47.95.

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Probably the most popular & easiest of all Photoshop / Elements “glamour effects” is a simple Overlay Diffusion.

It’s very simple to do - just duplicate your background layer, change the blend mode to Overlay, and blur it a bit. The result will be a slightly dreamy, extra saturated soft focus effect - perfect for portraits or boudoir photography.

There’s an action for you down below that will do these steps for you. If you like the effect, you really should check out Glam Photo 3 which has another 2 dozen or so glamour-type effects. Best of all, it installs automatically to Elements 5 or 6 with just a click (Windows-only, though - ).

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Ifyou’ve got Handy Actions 3 for Photoshop Elements 5 or 6, then you’ve got control over Curves.

Curves is a very powerful image adjustment tool, available in the full version of Photoshop (or in Elements, if you’ve got Handy Actions 3!). With it, you can adjust saturation, contrast, white & black balance, and a zillion other things that really tweak up your image.

Another cool thing about Curves is that you can create & store presets and reload them as needed. This is especially helpful if you’re editing a large batch of photos shot in the same conditions and you don’t want to have to recreate the same settings time and time again.

You can use Curves for special effects, too - like the preset in the download link below. It makes your image look like a faded old snapshot (similar to the effect in Fun Foto FX 3). If you apply the preset twice, like the first example in this post, it really looks great on some images. More often than not, it’ll work well by just applying it once, as in the photo of the beach girl.

*If you want to see what the Curves interface looks like in Photoshop Elements 6, check out this post.

Create some settings of your own - upload some here if you want to share. I’m always up for cool image effects!

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Here’sthe second set of actions I wrote about earlier today:

This set has two actions that produce a “Cross-Processed” look - taking the color channel of an image and altering it it some way to create a better look, an interesting effect, or a color-shifted appearance. And if you couldn’t tell by the nifty Add-O-Matic graphic over there, they’re good to go for Elements 5 and 6 (and quite probably earlier versions, too, but I don’t have an Add-O available for them….)

Anyway, these are two extensions (companions?) to the Cross-Processed action already in FunFotoFX. One big difference is that while the original creates a very specific effect, these two are infinitely more versatile in how you choose to make them look - you can change blend modes, turn layers on and off, change the order of the layers, and play until you turn your mouse finger into a little stump.

For two examples, the straight output of Cross Processed 2 is up there to the left. The bluish tinted image on the right was altered slightly:  I simply moved the “Blue” layer to the top of the stack and changed its blend mode to Multiply:

For the second altered output, I kept the Blue layer on the bottom of the stack, but changed the blend mode of the Red layer to Luminosity and the Green layer to Difference.

It makes for a beautifully darker color balance, and to me, looks great on portrait images with darker backgrounds.  Oh - it really works well to bring out lush scenery, too - try it on a landscape shot that needs a bit more “pop”.

The other action here - Cross Processed 3 - adds two Green layers that you can swap, blur, tweak, turn on or off, or otherwise alter. To the right is the regular output just as the action finishes:

It adds a ton of green to this particular image, so to counteract it a bit, I simply changed the “Red” layer to Multiply mode. It’s similar to the image I creted with Cross Processed 2, but contributes a little more lighting.

More experiments resulted in the image below. For that, to counteract the green, I added a solid color adjustment and filled it with a green color similar to the green I “eyedroppered” from the image.  I changed the Adjustment layer’s blend mode to Hue and added an Invert Adjustment layer above that - then I grouped the Invert layer to the Solid Color Adjustment (make the Invert layer active in the Layers palette & press <Ctrl>+<G>):

Other experiments with Pin Light & Vivid Light blends produced images that resemble High Key effects, Posterization effects, inverted effects and so many other interesting things in between.

So when you think about asking “what should I do with this action?” or “how does this action work?” (or “this action really bites….”) - just experiment! Move layers around and change blends and try different combinations.  This isn’t an action that will do everything for you “out of the box” - it gives you some new tools to mess with, though - but you’ll have to do a bit of work with them to get the look you like.

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