now we're going to transition into actions in automation is there are some tasks in photo shop that you need to do repetitive Lee. And you either want to speed them up because the laborious multi step process is or you simply don't want to remember all the steps involved because sometimes they're things where you might need to use a sheet of paper to write them down. Why not just have Photoshopped keep track of the steps? So first, I'm gonna try opening an image here. This is a raw file. And in Kameron, I ended up correcting for lens corrections. There is a choice in here under the lens tab called Enable Profile Corrections. If I turned off, you'll see one part of the correction be changed. But this image was shot with a fish eye lens if I remember correctly and this is trying to straighten it in the process of straightening it, we ended up with some empty space that I don't want a crop out. So I'm gonna choose open image and I would like photo shop to fill those areas. Now the feature...

I would usually use to fill those areas is called content aware fill. And the problem is, I would like to fill those areas on an empty layer so that the filled in information is contained on its own layer. And Photoshopped doesn't like doing that. And to get around it, there's a multi step process, and I always I hate going through the process because it could should be such a simple process and it becomes more complicated. So I'm gonna create an action to keep it simple. So to access the actions panel, go to the window menu and choose actions that should get this to show up. You probably don't have as many actions as I do, but that's fine at the bottom. Let's create a new folder. If you click on the folder icon, I'm gonna just call this one ultimate guide actions. I'll click OK, and now we have a place to store our actions. We can organize them amongst the others and then at the bottom of the Actions panel. We have a bunch of icons, and I'm gonna click this one to create a brand new action, and I'm going to call this fill empty areas. I mean, ignore all the other settings that are here. We could add a color, which would literally make it have a color in the actions panel so you could organize. You're so creative actions or red and adjustment actions or blue or something like that. I find I don't need to. Here you could assign a function key, which would be the F keys that might be at the top of your keyboard, which would make it automatically apply this action. I don't need to do that in up here. The words set. That's what they call the folder. So this just means where we going to store it. And it's a list of all these folders. So in general on doing is naming it, and I'm clicking record. When I click record, watch what happens at the bottom of the actions panel. You'll find three icons on the left side of the actions panel that are used when you're recording and playing back actions, and the Round one will end up turning red men that indicates it is currently recording. Now, when you're recording, you have to be very careful at what you do in Photoshop. It's best if you practice ahead of time so that you know you can perform something flawlessly because any extra steps you put in are going to just slow down in action when it gets applied in the future. So you want to be very efficient. But I think I can remember what needs to be done here and so well, we'll see what I'd like to do here is first select the empty parts of this layer, and there's a trick that we've used a few times during the ultimate guide, where we loaded the empty everything except for the empty parts. What we did is we moved our mouths into the layers panel and I ended up holding down the command key, which is controlling windows, and I collect on this thumbnail image. When you do that, it selects all the areas that don't look like a checkerboard, and therefore it selects There is that are not transparent. I'll do that right now. When I do that, you'll find in the Actions panel. It just created a new step, and it's called set selection in Therefore win, this action gets applied. It should be able to create the same kind of selection. Now I want the exact opposite of that because I want the areas that are empty. So go to this select menu and I'll choose inverse to get the opposite. Then if I'm gonna use content aware, fill the selection that I'm using needs to be overlapping the image itself not just contained within that empty area. So I'm gonna go to the select menu, choose, modify and choose expand, and you can expand it. Just one pixel is fine. That simply makes it so. This selection will overlap the image itself by one pixel, Then usually, if I were to apply this to an empty layer, which is actually what I want to do, the content aware fill command will give me an heir message. That's just says there's not enough information on that layer for it to be able to handle things. So what I need to do is get a copy of this layer so that I'm working on Ah, copy in. So there are many different ways I could copy something. I could drag this down to the new layer icon and that would create a copy. Then, at this point, I'm going to go to the edit menu and choose Phil and I'm going to set the contents to content, aware I'll click OK in. That should be able to fill in those empty areas. But if you look at my layers panel, not only do we have those areas that are selected that just got filled in, but we have the rest of the picture and I didn't want the rest of the picture. So I'll go to the select menu and choose Inverse to get the opposite of it. And then I'm just gonna hit the delete key to throw away this middle portion of the image that we don't need. So now in my Layers panel, we have the original picture underneath and above it. We have just those areas that used to be empty that have been filled in all, then go to the select menu in Choose de Select to get rid of my selection. Now that's a process I hate going through every time because it should be that I could just tell it to fill the empty parts, and it should do all that for me. But it can. So in my layers panel, it's still recording. I need to hit the stop button to get it to stop recording, and then I need to test my action. I'm going to revert this image back to its original by going to the file menu and choosing Revert. I'm then going to click on the name of this action, which was called Fill Empty Areas, and I'll hit the play button at the bottom of the actions panel, and it should go through all those steps forming in filling the empty parts. And it seemed to work just fine. Anytime you create an action, you should look out the steps that were recorded to make sure that it's gonna be universally applicable. And the most common thing that happens with creating inaction is that if you ever switch which layer is active, it will usually record the name of the layer within the action. It will say, you know, make whatever the name of this layer is activist one of your steps, and if that's the case, the action will not usually be universally applicable because not every document will have a layer of that name. So let's see if we have anything within this action that looks like it might mess this up when I attempt to apply it to other images here. It says Set selection, Transparency Channel. I don't see the name of a layer within that. So I think that'll work fine. That simply means select the areas that are not empty in whatever layers active. Then we inverse the selection. Then we expanded by one pixel and I don't see the name of a layer in there. So we're fine here, It says. Duplicate current layer. Great. If it said duplicate, and then it's very specific layer name that wouldn't be universally applicable. We then we filled with content, aware looks good. He inverted the selection, hit, delete and then we set the selection and none. It looks to me like all those steps should be workable on any document. I don't see anything that's unique to this particular document, so I think we have a great first action

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Lessons 1 - 6 - Handbook 1: Introduction to Adobe Photoshop

Lessons 7 - 12 - Handbook 2: How to Use Camera Raw

Lessons 13 - 18 - Handbook 3: Making Selections

Lessons 19 - 24 - Handbook 4: Using Layers

Lessons 25 - 30 - Handbook 5: Using Layer Masks

Lessons 31 - 38 - Handbook 6: Using Adjustment Layers

Lessons 39 - 44 - Handbook 7: Color Theory

Lessons 45 - 51 - Handbook 8: Retouching Essentials

Lessons 52 - 59 - Handbook 9: Tools Panel

Lessons 60 - 64 - Handbook 10: Layer Blending Modes

Lessons 65 - 70 - Handbook 11: How to Use Filters

Lessons 71 - 74 - Handbook 12: Advanced Masks

Lessons 75 - 81 - Handbook 13: Using Smart Objects

Lessons 82 - 86 - Handbook 14: Photography for Photoshop

Lessons 87 - 93 - Handbook 15: Advanced Photo Retouching

Lessons 94 - 98 - Handbook 16: Warp, Blend, Liquify

Lessons 99 - 105 - Handbook 17: Advanced Layers

Lessons 106 - 112 - Handbook 18: Actions

Lessons 113 - 117 - Handbook 19: Troubleshooting Issues

Practice Images 1: Introduction to Adobe Photoshop

Practice Images 2: How to Use Camera Raw

Practice Images 3: Making Selections

Practice Images 4: Using Layers

Practice Images 5: Using Layer Masks

Practice Images 6: Using Adjustment Layers

Practice Images 7: Color Theory

Practice Images 8: Retouching Essentials

Practice Images 9: Tools Panel

Practice Images 10: Layer Blending Modes

Practice Images 11: How to Use Filters

Practice Images 12: Advanced Masks

Practice Images 13: Using Smart Objects

Practice Images 14: Photography for Photoshop

Practice Images 15: Advanced Photo Retouching

Practice Images 16: Warp, Blend, Liquify

Practice Images 17: Advanced Layers

Practice Images 18: Actions

Practice Images 19: Troubleshooting Issues

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Ben Willmore

As a photographer, Ben Willmore has shot in all 50 states and explored over 80 countries. He has been pushing Photoshop and Lightroom Classic to their limits since the beginning.

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topics covered in this class

Adobe Photoshop Beginner Fundamentals Photo Editing

Ratings and Reviews

Noel Ice

I am an avid reader of photoshop books, and an avid watcher of photoshop tutorials. I have attended (internet) several hundred of presentations. In the course of this endeavor, I have found my own favorite photoshop websites and instructors. Creative Live is probably the bargain out there as well as among the top three internet course sites. I have to say with great enthusiasm that the best Photoshop instructor is Ben Willmore. There are many great ones, but truly, he is the best I have come across, and, as indicated above, I have watched literally 100s of tutorials on Photoshop. I have seen all of Ben's courses, I think, and among them, this one is the best by far, and that is saying a lot, because that makes this course the best course on Photoshop to be found anywhere. I am going back and watching it twice. Not only is it comprehensive, but Ben is so familiar with his subject that he is able to explain it like no other. This is crème de la crème of Photoshop classes. I have been wanting to write this review for some time because I have been so thoroughly impressed with everything about this class!

ford smith

Highly recommended if you want to take your Photoshop skills to the next level. Ben Willmore is clear, concise, and professional. He also has a good speaking voice that is not distracting but also keeps you engaged. Lastly, I would recommend that as you become more advanced, increasing the speed of the video (one of the options given on the menu)...especially if you've gone through the course once before and maybe want to watch it again. The double speed is very efficient as you become more advanced in Photoshop. Thanks for the help Ben!

a Creativelive Student

Wow. I cannot communicate the value of this course!! The true value in this course is how the instructor identifies workflows you'll need before you'll ever realize it, repeats important information without it becoming annoying, and explains the "why" behind the techniques so well that even if you forget the exact method, you can figure it out via the principles learned. Excellent value, excellent material, excellent instructor!!!

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Create a Content Aware Fill Action

Create a Content Aware Fill Action

Lesson Info

107. Create a Content Aware Fill Action

Lessons

Introduction To Adobe Photoshop

Bridge vs. Lightroom

Tour of Photoshop Interface

Overview of Bridge Workspace

Overview of Lightroom Workspace

Lightroom Preferences - Saving Documents

How To Use Camera Raw in Adobe Photoshop 2020

Overview of Basic Adjustment Sliders

Developing Raw Images

Editing with the Effects and HLS Tabs

How to Save Images

Using the Transform Tool

Making Selections in Adobe Photoshop 2020

Selection Tools

Combining Selection Tools

Using Automated Selection Tools

Quick Mask Mode

Select Menu Essentials

Using Layers in Adobe Photoshop 2020

Align Active Layers

Creating a New Layer

Creating a Clipping Mask

Using Effects on Layers

Using Adjustment Layers

Using the Shape Tool

Create a Layer Mask Using the Selection Tool

Masking Multiple Images Together

Using Layer Masks to Remove People

Using Layer Masks to Replace Sky

Adding Texture to Images

Layering to Create Realistic Depth

Adjustment Layers in Adobe Photoshop 2020

Optimizing Grayscale with Levels

Adjusting Levels with a Histogram

Understanding Curves

Editing an Image Using Curves

Editing with Shadows/Highlights Adjustment

Dodge and Burn Using Quick Mask Mode

Editing with Blending Modes

Color Theory

Curves for Color

Hue and Saturation Adjustments

Isolating Colors Using Hue/Saturation Adjustment

Match Colors Using Numbers

Adjusting Skin Tones

Retouching Essentials In Adobe Camera Raw

Retouching with the Spot Healing Brush

Retouching with the Clone Stamp

Retouching with the Healing Brush

Retouching Using Multiple Retouching Tools

Extending an Edge with Content Aware

Clone Between Documents

Crop Tool

Frame Tool

Eye Dropper and Color Sampler Tools

Paint Brush Tools

History Brush Tool

Eraser and Gradient Tools

Brush Flow and Opacity Settings

Blur and Shape Tools

Dissolve Mode

Multiply Mode

Screen Mode

Hard Light Mode

Hue, Saturation, and Color Modes

Smart Filters

High Pass Filter

Blur Filter

Filter Gallery

Adaptive Wide Angle Filter

Combing Filters and Features

Select and Mask

Manually Select and Mask

Creating a Clean Background