The Ultimate Collection Of Useful Photoshop Actions
Saving repetitive tasks as Photoshop actions can save you a lot of time, allowing you to automate your work and improve workflow efficiency. A Photoshop action is a recording of a sequence of commands and operations that you can save and access later on.
We’ve searched for the best downloadable Photoshop actions that can help you improve your workflow and perform complex techniques with the push of a button. In this collection, you’ll find more than 350 free hand-picked Photoshop actions that you can use to speed up your graphics creation.
Note: It’s important to check the license of each action set you download and use.
Quick Introduction to Photoshop Actions
For those unfamiliar with Photoshop actions, they’re simply pre-recorded tasks that you can save and reuse anytime. Photoshop actions commonly have an .atn file extension. Installing a Photoshop action for more recent versions of Photoshop is easy: simply drag the .atn file onto the Actions palette or place it directly inside your Adobe Photoshop\Presets\Photoshop Actions folder. For a more comprehensive discussion of Photoshop actions, check out this complete guide to Photoshop actions.
Image Effects and Graphic Creation Actions
Cross-processing ATN
Simulate the Cross-processing (Xpro) photography technique using this Photoshop action.
1 action – Download
Lomo
Give your images a “Lomo” look and feel with this excellent Photoshop action.
1 action – Download
Lomo Cross-processing
This Photoshop action is a combination of two popular photography effects: Lomo and Cross-processing.
1 action – Download
Polaroid Generator
Automatically frame an image in a Polaroid border with this set of Photoshop actions.
5 actions - Download
Hand-Colored Vintage Photo
This is a handy Photoshop action set for giving images aged, dirty effects.
4 actions – Download
Vintage
Aly’s Vintage action set is a nice collection of six vintage image effects that you can use on modern digital photos.
6 Actions – Download
Vintage Wash
Give your images an old, vintage effect with this set of ten different actions.
10 actions – Download
Old Parchment
Easily create aged paper with this free Photoshop action.
1 action – Download
Simple Stamp Generator
Automatically create a stamp graphic with this action.
1 action – Download
Pseudo HDR
Mimic the “HDR” photo effect without having to use multiple exposures of the subject.
1 action – Download
HDR For Dummies
Here’s another easy-to-use Photoshop action set for giving photos the “HDR” effect.
3 actions – Download
IR Actions
Give your photos the popular infrared effect using Dave’s IR Photoshop action.
1 action – Download
IR Effect
Here is another method for faking the infrared photographic effect using a Photoshop action.
1 action – Download
Photo Effect Action
This Photoshop action can be used for grunge designs.
1 action - Download
Comics Photoshop Action
Give your image a comic book look and feel using this Photoshop action.
1 action - Download
Retro Love
Achieve a retro-colored image effect using the Retro Love action.
1 action – Download
Soften Skin Effect
Smoothen skin and remove blemishes with the Soften Skin Effect action.
1 action – Download
Burnt Edges Vignette
This action gives your photos burnt and high-key effects (available for low- and high-resolution images, see the “Try Me”-section).
4 actions – Download site, check the “Try Me”-section
Edge Effects
This set of actions allows you to give your images different types of edge effects.
8 actions – Download
B & Big Picture
Create a three-dimensional collage effect using one source image with the B & Big Picture action.
4 actions – Download
Photo Enhancement and Processing Actions
Black and White Photoshop Actions
This is a set of useful actions for processing black and white images.
8 actions – Download
TLR B&W Toning
TLR B&W Toning is a large action set for enhancing and processing black and white images.
30 actions – Download
Photoshop Postwork Actions
Here is a ton of excellent post-work Photoshop actions.
25 actions – Download
TLR Sharpening Toolkit
This is a useful Photoshop action pack for sharpening RGB, CMYK and monochrome photos.
33 actions – Download
TLR Tone Enhance
Enhance the tone and color of your images using this Photoshop action set.
30 actions – Download
Color Enhancing Actions
Here is a variety of actions, such as “colorboost,” “softlight,” and “contrastboost.”
10 actions – Download
Photoshop Color Actions
A nice collection of color actions to process and enhance your photographs.
10 actions – Download
Cross Coloring Tools
Here is a set of actions for dark, mid-range, and light cross-coloring of image tone.
4 actions – Download
Image Enhancing PS Actions
These are ten brilliant image-enhancing Photoshop actions.
10 actions – Download
Watermark Photoshop Action
Automate the watermarking of your images with this set of Photoshop actions.
9 actions – Download
Photographers Toolkit
A wonderful set of actions for photographers to enhance photos.
9 actions – Download
Assorted Sets of Actions
Photoshop Actions – 53
This is the 53rd set of Photoshop actions by =night-fate of deviantART.
9 actions – Download
Productions Action
This is a set of useful actions that will simplify your workflow for common Photoshop tasks.
20 actions - Download
Photoshop Automator Actions
This is one of the biggest sets of useful actions to cut down on repetitive tasks such as watermarking images, scaling images, and fitting images in the canvas. You need to register before being able to download the set.
90 actions – Download
Photography Action Set
This is an excellent collection of popular photo effects, such as HDR, Lomo, Velvia, Xpro and more.
8 actions – Download
Rather Large Set of Actions
This is a large collection of useful Photoshop actions.
40 actions – Download
Photoshop Actions – 62
Another beautiful set of assorted Photoshop actions by =night-fate.
8 actions – Download
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kocsmy
October 20th, 2008 1:23 pmwaaao, nice collection! thank you!
Tiago
October 20th, 2008 1:30 pmWow!!! Thanks!
samuelson.pl
October 20th, 2008 1:36 pmnice :)
manu
October 20th, 2008 1:41 pmi love the cross coloring action!
magnus
October 20th, 2008 1:43 pmI like – I LOVE – super smashing keep it up
Praveen Sewak
October 20th, 2008 1:44 pmamazing collection, this one… i am not much of a designer (more a developer) but Photoshops Actions have helped me alot achieve some of the nicest effects i would imagine.
Thanks SM.
Mike Brisk
October 20th, 2008 1:48 pmA feature that isn’t expressed very often in designing sites, great resource! Thanks!
pandu.ch
October 20th, 2008 2:03 pmwow, another smashing collection! keep up the good work.
greets pandu
Tommy K
October 20th, 2008 2:12 pmgreat stuff… thanks a lot
cesar Gomez
October 20th, 2008 2:14 pmThis is very useful, thanks a lot
Fachia
October 20th, 2008 2:22 pmwow.. that’s a very nice compilation..
I’m sure it can be so useful
I’ll start to download it..
xepik
October 20th, 2008 2:30 pmomg, thanks (:
a simply amazing collection here
mike.
October 20th, 2008 2:48 pmnice post.
mesiu
October 20th, 2008 2:59 pmthanks for putting these together!
Rolando
October 20th, 2008 3:01 pmCool Actions! I´ll try them tomorrow…
Ollie
October 20th, 2008 3:01 pmAbsolutely fantastic post! These are going to be really useful. Thank you ;o)
Nat
October 20th, 2008 3:50 pmI can wait to try some of these out. Thank you!
abdel faiz
October 20th, 2008 4:41 pmawesome actions ^^
pixelvandal
October 20th, 2008 5:22 pmThank you for a great collection.
Valerie
October 20th, 2008 5:36 pmVery awesome collection, thank you. I am downloading them all now :)
Colin
October 20th, 2008 6:21 pmShoot I thought these would be useful in the batch processing and time saving way.
Tae
October 20th, 2008 6:50 pmcool action,
thanks…
au8ust
October 20th, 2008 7:05 pmAn excellent blog post!
NaldzGraphics
October 20th, 2008 7:20 pmReally ultimate.nice jacob and SM
Martin
October 20th, 2008 7:33 pmThe best PS actions collection I’ve ever seen. Cheers
gr8pixel
October 20th, 2008 7:54 pmWoahhhh!!! These are really awesome!! Thanks SM! :D
Jigar
October 20th, 2008 8:21 pmI have never seen this type of effects..
This is very Useful.
Thanks, SM.
terry
October 20th, 2008 8:57 pmreally nice collection.
Thanks!
CantY
October 20th, 2008 9:47 pmNice Collection !!!
Robert
October 20th, 2008 9:53 pmgreat job SM!
Sallihin
October 20th, 2008 9:56 pmTHANK YOU VERY MUCH!
Diego
October 20th, 2008 9:58 pmthanks ;) the best collection ever seen
Shuuun
October 20th, 2008 10:30 pmi will try actions now! ty for this examples!
Consuelo_italy
October 20th, 2008 10:56 pmSome of then are really wonderfull.. and so “quick”!!! :-) Thanks
Roland
October 20th, 2008 11:10 pmWhy do I keep getting the feeling this site’s intended audience is home users (most of which don’t even use legally acquired software)?
No offense, as it must’ve taken quite some work to get such a collection of links put together, but either only list those actions that can (also) be used commercially, or save your readers the work of having to check out every single action they deem interesting by adding some info on restrictions.
Anthony
July 4th, 2010 7:00 pmWho are you to say that people don’t use legally obtained software? Don’t let your own guilty conscience convince you that everybody else is a thief too. There is no data to support what you just said and it is offensive for you to assume that. Moron…
speedcu
October 20th, 2008 11:13 pmyeah, great!! very useful stuff! thanks so much :)
Gerd Wippich
October 20th, 2008 11:21 pmA very useful collection. Thanx.
mojito
October 20th, 2008 11:21 pmThanks.. this encourages me to start experimenting and using actions on PS, that are a forgotten feature to me right now.
jean-marc
October 20th, 2008 11:26 pmSmashing as usual!
Arcana
October 20th, 2008 11:33 pmSo useful! Thanks so much!
Alex
October 21st, 2008 12:05 amGreat! Thank you!
Webstandard-Team
October 21st, 2008 12:22 amWe know some of them and we cann add some more photoshop actions
Modisana
October 21st, 2008 12:35 amI never really like using actions, I prefer creating my own things from scratch…but seeing how AWESOME all of these are and how busy I often am to sit and do my own stuff, Im gonna get every single one of these…Thanks Smashing! Y’all ROCK!
Tom
October 21st, 2008 1:07 amnice thought roland. i totally agree with you
chris
October 21st, 2008 1:15 amawesome stuff. ty
MoiN
October 21st, 2008 1:50 amThis is the best post you guys could ever come up with !!
Love these
upla dupla
October 21st, 2008 1:55 amBoring. There is nothing creative using actions. You just click and get instant effects without thinking what happened with your image. Thats why there is a lot of same looking garbage photos everywhere. You can get far beter color and LOMO effects if you spend 5 minutes in Photoshop with open mind. And thats what I call Photoshop Fun.
Jojje
October 21st, 2008 3:11 amThank you! Great work. Inspiring!
Djex
October 21st, 2008 3:30 amhow can i use the action set? after the instalation i can´t use it in photoshop…
Alex
October 21st, 2008 3:31 amI wonder, what is the best one out of all of these to enhance quality. I scanned 1500 pictures one by one with a regular scanner (yes, very long and painful process)…Now that it is done, is there any general action that will enhance automatically most pictures? of course, i will do some one by one… but if i am to automate the whole batch, which is best?
charles
October 21st, 2008 3:41 amI wrote a tutorial explaining how to create a “batch save” action to save and exit all the open images you have in Photoshop. I think it’s a much more usable action than something like “zany color actions”.
http://onlinephototutorials.com/2008/07/30/batch-save-using-photoshop/
vashyoung
October 21st, 2008 4:00 amvery useful indeed :P
Justin
October 21st, 2008 4:18 amVery nice actions, BUT my suggestion would be to just get Lightroom 2 :)
sidhu
October 21st, 2008 4:42 amsuper and super and super very useful
DKumar M.
October 21st, 2008 5:05 amNice collection, keep up the good work.
Frizbi
October 21st, 2008 6:18 amYou made my day ^^ Thank you so much!
mikey
October 21st, 2008 6:29 amthis is great! thank you.
Wayfaring Wanderer
October 21st, 2008 6:31 amThis is AWESOME!!!
Orlando Diez
October 21st, 2008 6:35 amReally Nice, Thanks one more time ;)
Stevedave
October 21st, 2008 7:39 amI have to agree with upla dupla, there isn’t much that these actions do that can’t be done with some basic Adjustments. Additionally these actions are optimized for the photos shown as examples, you’re almost certain to get better results adjusting the photos individually or creating your own action sets for a photo set’s individual lighting and color needs. We’re talking basic photoshopping here, stuff that should be done in the first ten to twenty minutes of working with any image.
Mini-no
October 21st, 2008 7:45 amAwesome post, great actions. Thanks for this.
kaseysmithcs
October 21st, 2008 7:53 amGreat post, Thanks for the actions and keep up the GREAT WORK.
Nishan Joomun
October 21st, 2008 8:08 amI normally love your selections … but here i think you mixed quality + quantity .. many of them could be left out
brauny
October 21st, 2008 8:22 amThe best collection of PS actions I have ever come across. Thank You.
praveen
October 21st, 2008 8:50 amamazing …. brilliant… i hav no words to say… gr8 wrk
Henry
October 21st, 2008 10:06 amWow…!! Great colletion… Thank you so much…!!!
Håvard Bergersen
October 21st, 2008 11:17 amVery good collection!
Edo
October 21st, 2008 12:09 pmGreat post, cross processing is amazing but don’t forget this useful action:-)
Lightwork Apocalypse action
Devon Delzin
October 21st, 2008 1:17 pmthis was the best i have sceen so far keep up the good work ….. from Trinidad and Tobago
klynam
October 21st, 2008 1:38 pmexcellent list – as always – now its time for that list of AWESOME FREE PS PLUG-INS !!! :-)
Fel
October 21st, 2008 2:00 pmMan, your contribution is magnificent. nice collection, thank you.
Nikx
October 21st, 2008 3:30 pmHey, that’s me! The redhead. The natural redhead, that is.
Great collection, by the way.
jason
October 21st, 2008 5:24 pmSmashing comments are very similar to ebay feedback
ARTICLE WAS AMAZING, WOULD READ AGAIN!!!!!! AA++++++PLUSINFINITY
Maybe this is the norm on blogs, I don’t read many but the few people saying this collection is not great seem to know the score.
Mammademin
October 21st, 2008 9:16 pmwouwwwwwwwwwww….supaaa
Guy McLaren
October 21st, 2008 9:45 pmExcellent set of actions, what would make this even more useful is if you zipped them all up in one file for download. That would make this excellent page super excellent.
padwan leinad
October 22nd, 2008 1:21 amcool… but do NOT zip’em all together… those to lazy to download them separately don’t deserve them all… :)
and some might not want them all… or might not even like all of them… :)
great stuff, tanx!
Rumont
October 22nd, 2008 3:30 amBuenísima recopilación. Muchas gracias
mistress web
October 22nd, 2008 4:07 amgreat page, but are these just for home use or can they potentially be used for commercial use?
Quakeulf
October 22nd, 2008 5:18 amTo all you guys who bash the use of actions:
You obviously have never experienced a real deadline before.
Awesome list, just what I needed right now. :3
Jo_Winchester
October 22nd, 2008 5:56 amQuakeulf is right. Actions are a life saver in a rush job. I can definitely try these out for future projects.
Thank you!
Calvin
October 23rd, 2008 1:47 amThank you for a great collection.
sumanth
October 23rd, 2008 5:33 amgreat stuff yaar….hats off
Dan
October 23rd, 2008 6:20 amThank you so much.
Betsy Barron
October 23rd, 2008 7:43 amThank you, Thank you, Thank you!!!!!
kirandulo
October 23rd, 2008 7:48 amexcellent! similar collection for GIMP would be great, too
Khan
October 23rd, 2008 2:55 pmthanks for sharing ………….. very useful…. nice…
jsonvega
October 23rd, 2008 7:11 pmthank you thank you very much for the great collection! :D
Raul Soto
October 23rd, 2008 10:01 pmI love you, Tanks!
Tuur
October 24th, 2008 12:58 amgreat stuff!!!
Numbskull
October 24th, 2008 4:01 amThank you very much!
Now i got alot of stuff to try out :-)
gasiwa
October 24th, 2008 9:20 pmowesoomwe!!!
thank you man!
Roberto Abril
October 25th, 2008 1:50 amThanks a lot for the feature!
david
October 25th, 2008 4:20 amamazing! thank you so much!
Rubén Sottolichio
October 26th, 2008 12:48 amIncreible!!!!
smashingmagazine.com. El mejor sitio de diseño gráfico y web, siempre.
Incredible!!
smashingmagazine.com. The best site for graphic and web design, always.
Ok!!
rodolfo
October 26th, 2008 2:05 pmsweet!
Mchilly
October 26th, 2008 6:28 pmWow, amazing collection…
bl4nk
October 27th, 2008 8:11 amamazing collection!!!
fahrulazmi
October 30th, 2008 1:40 amthanks!!!
LumaFlux
October 31st, 2008 11:13 amSuper duper! Just made my day that much “colorful”.
ponytail
November 3rd, 2008 7:28 pmso cool!~~
what a wonderful work~~
thanks a lot,try some tonight