This action pack offers you, the photographer a variety of ways to convert your color photos into Black & White (including utilizing multiple saturation adjustment layers, various color channels, additional color layers and several combinations of them all), and many of them delve into Lab mode (an image mode available to full Photoshop users, but now available to Elements 5 users!).

These actions are all fully compatible with Photoshop Elements 5 and Photoshop CS +. There are a total of 38 actions (and a thumbnails file for Elements users) that color adjust, desaturate, manipulate color channels and even frame your images. Now you can create stunningly crisp B&W images with just a click.

Like all of the new 2.5 series of actions for Elements, the download includes an installer as well as an uninstaller, so you don’t have to waste time moving files here and there. Simply download, unzip, run the installer and fire up Elements. That’s it.

This new action pack is now available in the Graffishop for much less money than you might think. Some folks offer you one or two effects for far more than the cost of this self-installing pack, which bring 38 powerful actions to Photoshop or Elements 5.

Want to see some samples? No problem - there are a bunch of them here. You can view a slideshow of these images by clicking here. John Gray has some nice examples in his gallery. So does dondiego. You can also just check out some of the sample images scattered around this post, including the installer interface above.

Check out this new action pack - I’m sure you’ll be happy with both the results and the price!

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Most of the three or four people who read this blog regularly know how fond I am robots - the cheesier and retro-esque, the better.

So it should come as no surprise when a post that links to another blog featuring a way-cool artist’s rendering of a 3D robot shows up here. Especially when it’s an Indiana Jones ‘bot, complete with hat and whip. I mean, what’s more retro-esque & cheesy than ‘ole Indy? And now he’s a ‘bot?! Sah-weet!

Like the link below - complete with a step-by-step on how it was created:

He kept falling on the floor as I was making him, then I accidentally kicked him into the boot tray by the back door. As I was washing him off in the sink he fell down the drain. I turned on the light to see him, but I was actually turning on the garbage disposal. After I fished him out, I put him outside in the sun to dry off. A few months later I remembered to bring him back in.

Wicked cool.

Link to » Blog Archive » Indybot

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There’sfour more actions in this little set - they all work with color channels. Three of them utilize the Red, Green and Blue channels of an image to emphasize or reduce the color values, and the third uses Lab mode to create a B&W layer with a mask that can then be painted to allow a splash of color through.

All of them leave the layers intact and produce some very versatile effects to your photos.

Photoshop Elements 5 users can easily get them up and running using Add-O-Matic (now up to version 2.5). Just fire up Add-O, drag the .atn files into the orange box and click “GO!”. Photoshop users can just access them like any other action.

Some usage tips: After running one of the Red, Blue or Green color actions, you’ll have three layers: your original Background layer and two B&W layers of the appropriate color’s channel (blue=blue, red = red, etc.) and a mask for each of these “channel” layers.

One mask is standard; the other is inverted. You can mix and match these layers by turning on or off the layers. Turning both of them on effectively removes that color’s channel from your image; turning on just one or the other results in the color adding or reducing to the overall image.

You can also adjust the blend mode of these layers, too (experiment with Multiply and Hue for interesting results), as well as tweak with the opacity for a nearly infinite degree of control.

These are included in the B&W Conversion Lab set in the Graffishop. Have fun!

• - - Download Removed - - Look for these actions in the new B&W Conversion Lab action set for Photoshop & Photoshop Elements 5

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Update: Polls fixed! Check the sidebar (or click here) to vote in the polls!

Thenew B&W Conversion Lab set for Photoshop & Elements is proving to be pretty popular. There’s been a bunch of positive feedback, and I haven’t heard of any problems with either installing or uninstalling or running the action set. Plus, the effects themselves have resulted in some truly stunning images (check out John Gray’s lighthouse images - excellent!) 

I’ve seen other action sets from a variety of creators, and most of them are top-notch. However, I haven’t seen any that offer both the number of actions in my sets at the price I’m selling them for anywhere. I’ve seen sets with a few actions selling for upwards of $40 and $50, and I’ve seen seen single (or maybe two) actions in a single download for as little as $10. But none of them offer the quantity of actions I’ve got in most packs (Fun Foto FX 2.5 offers 72 action effects for around $10, and Handy Actions 3 has 70 functionality actions and effects for the same price - and the Bundle Pack has 244 actions for right around $35!). Quality and quantity, right?

But it makes me wonder if I’m under-selling myself. I’m not in it to make money, really - this isn’t my “real” job. I funnel any dollars back into paying for web space and upgrading software (as well as justify the time spent on the computer creating, programming and recording the actions and installers).

Thanks for taking the time - and thanks for all your support - and enjoy the actions!

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I’vealways liked doodling. Ever since I was a very small kid just outside Chicago, I would write and draw my own comic books. I had a whole stable of characters (”Mighty Mike” was the leader of the group, of course). As I grew up, I had a natural tendency toward more creative arts: design, music, songwriting, recording, painting, writing. My “real” job is as a programmer (which I guess is pretty creative) and I find plenty of ways to work graphics into my life. The creative process is what I like best.

Anyway, to that end, I’ve always had an eye and ear out for cool tools - new guitar effects, the latest keyboard or drum machine or sampler, different paper and brushes, and of course, over the past decade or more, cool graphics applicatons and utilities. I’ve found a bunch of stuff that I use just about daily (well, weekly or monthly) like Photoshop (duh), the GIMP, RealDraw Pro, Xara and a ton of freebies scattered around.

So speaking of freebies, in my ongoing quest to get into 3D modeling, I’ve tried a bunch of apps (Blender, mainly) but Google’s SketchUp is way cool - especially for the support and training available in a free application.

• Best of all, with SketchUp, there are tons of other links, like
  A downloadable PDF User’s Guide
  A Layout User’s Guide
  Video Tutorials
  Bonus Packs
  and a Free Place to Upload your creations

 I’m off to go play with it a bit and see what I can come up with…

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Some
sampleshave been uploaded to my Flickr account, tagged with the B&W Creation Lab tag. You can view them static by clicking the link over there, or view them as a slideshow here.

I also ran these through one of the Frame actions from a few days ago (the Line Frame action, to be specific) to give it more of an elegant, finished look.

*I wish I could attribute the original photographer, but I unfortunately don’t know where I got the guitar image! If I can’t find it this evening, I’ll swap it out with an image of my own from home.*

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B&W Lab
ConversionI’ve got a new action FX pack ready. It’s chock full of 30-some actions for converting your color RGB input images to B&W through a variety of channel changes, adjustment layers, menu commands and other secret herbs and spices. This one is Photoshop Elements 5.0-only, though.

It’s called B&W Lab Conversion, and uses LAB mode to create B&W conversions. It also creates some nice sepia tones, has a few excellent sharpening tools, a nice noise reducer and some color tint actions. Most use Lab mode, so that’s why it’s for Photoshop and Photoshop Elements 5 only.

Please, Mac users and those with Elements 4, 3 or 2, don’t blast me for it. If you want your PSE 5 to run on the Mac, holler at Adobe. If you want these actions to work on a Windows machine, go ahead and upgrade to PSE 5.

For the rest of you, these are the usual self-installing pack o’ actions, lovingly created for Elements, but just as functional in full Photoshop. It also includes an uninstaller in case you decide you don’t want ‘em anymore.

• Let’s see how much word of mouth this generates - I’m limiting the download availability on this one before they hit the shops, so spread the word - fast!

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