These actions have been designed from the ground up, to give a realistic 'film look' to your images. The actions are exactly the same as those used by Jeff in all of his work since November 2008. Every image on his blog, and all of the images in his website gallery are processed with these actions.
Some of the most popular actions from the hugely popular 'Ascough Actions II' have been updated to work with the higher resolution images that we have now, and also to take into account the greater functionality that comes with Photoshop CS4.
The black and white actions are completely different to those in AAII. They are quicker to run, and give a better 'film-like' effect to the image. They also allow the user to tweak the brightness, contrast, and tone of the image to taste.
Greater batch functionality has also been built into the actions. There are some super quick black and white batch actions which are perfect for proofing.
Note that some of the actions will not run in earlier versions of Photoshop.
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In the set;
*MONO*
400 speed b/w film - an authentic black and white action which also adds grain to the image. Contrast, brightness, and midtone contrast are all controllable.
400 speed b/w film diffused - as above but with a controllable softening effect akin to using a silk stocking over an enlarger.
800 speed b/w film - my main action, and a really lovely high speed film effect.
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*MONO ENHANCE*
diffusion grain - a film grain effect that is slightly diffused to give the effect like a negative being printed through a diffuser enlarger
diffusion grain more - as above but a stronger grain effect
condenser grain - as Diffusion grain but with a sharper edge to the grain, similar to a negative being printed through a condenser enlarger.
condenser grain more - as above but a stronger grain effect.
warm tone - a subtle toning effect which mimics the colour of a warm toned black and white print (use after running a black and white action). Controllable.
cool tone - as above but adds a bluish tone.
deep shadow enhance - pulls up extreme shadow detail in a contrasty image. Particularly useful if a black and white image looks too dark in the shadows.
film curve - used with any of the b/w actions, this will give an old school look to the b/w image. Used with a colour image, it will adjust to tonal range to mimic colour print film.
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*COLOUR*
colour film tone CS4 - used to mimic the contrast and tonal range of 35mm colour print film.
colour film tone CS4 burnt edges - as above but with the edges burned in.
colour clean up - enhances the mid tone contrast of a colour image.
subtle warmth colour - ideal for warming flesh tones on a colour image.
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*BATCH*
batch actions - several actions designed to run as batches within bridge, or as droplets in Photoshop.
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*GENERAL ENHANCEMENT*
burn edges CS4 - a subtle way of enhancing any image. Use the adjustments panel to alter the strength of the effect.
improve film tone - another method of adjusting midtone contrast to improve the appearance of the image
midtone lift extreme - just a super quick way of brightening the midtones without making the image look muddy.
midtone lift moderate - as above, but more subtle.
web sharpen - my favourite way to sharpen my images for my website and blog.
