How to Install Photoshop Actions

Final product image — What You’ll Be Creating

Photoshop actions feature prerecorded steps to help you achieve dynamic pictures in less time. Use them to instantly refresh your Instagram timeline, portfolio, or personal photography work.

Today, we’ll learn how to install a Photoshop action from start to finish before applying a cool, faded duotone effect.

Watch
the steps unfold in this quick video lesson and get all the details you
need in the written process below. Head on over to Envato Market for more amazing effects like Photoshop actions.

Follow along with this tutorial over on our Envato Tuts+ YouTube channel.

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Here’s a quick breakdown of how to install Photoshop actions.

Download the action and Right-click to Extract it from the compressed .ZIP file.
Open Adobe Photoshop and go to Window > Actions to access the Actions panel.
Click on the Actions panel menu button (top right) and select Load Actions.
Load the action with a .ATN extension.
Repeat this process to load more actions.

Step 1

Follow along below for the full tutorial.

For this tutorial, I’ll be using one of the amazing actions from this pack of Faded Duotone Photoshop Actions on Envato Elements.

The final effect will also be applied to this Fashion Studio Portrait.

Here’s the before picture.

Hit the Download button on Envato Elements and create a name for your project. I’ll just type “social media” before hitting the Add and Download button.

Step 2

Once your file is downloaded, it’ll appear as a compressed ZIP file with all your Photoshop action components.

Right-click to Extract these contents
and click on the folder to assess what you have. In most cases, you’ll
have a documentation file along with the action as a .ATN extension.

Make sure to always read the helpful documentation file just in case it has specific guidelines on the types of photos you can use with that action.

This particular one doesn’t have any specifically, but here’s an example of what they may look like, taken from the Berlin Photoshop Actions pack.

Help guide for Photoshop actions — Here’s a look at our action at the top and the Berlin Photoshop Action guidelines at the bottom.

Step 3

Now install the action.

Open Adobe Photoshop and go to Window > Actions to bring up the Actions panel.

Select the drop-down options and hit Load Actions to load the duotone file. Once you hit Load it’ll now appear as the last one in the Actions panel.

Test out your action by opening a new photo and selecting the background layer. Then select the action you want to use before hitting the Play button.

It may take a couple of seconds or a few minutes to play out the action completely.

Here’s my final result after applying the Autumn Breeze action.

Learn More With Our Tutorials!

Create stunning photos with easy-to-use Photoshop actions! I hope this quick video lesson has inspired you to try these amazing photo effects to add to all your photography.

What kind of actions are your favorite? Let us know in the comments!

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