Expert: LizaL - 12/10/2004

Question
YOU are a Super Hero to me.  
I consider myself adventerous behind a keyboard, but you can do some wonderous things.

I've downloaded the trial version of Photoshop 8.0 so now I'm up to speed, all I have to do now is figure out how to follow your advice.

To recap..I've got to resize all my images and add a border.  No biggy, right?  

I'm going to try try try again, but your advice with 8.0 would be MUCH appreciated.

Answer
Hey Mercedes,

I am just blown away by your response! Thank you so much -- your comments are much appreciated. You're so kind, and I'm glad I was able to help.

That's right, no biggy -- make sure your images are all the same size, for starters. Keep them all in the same folder, too. And when you do the border, all you have to do is do it once, to the first image, so that you can record the action.

My recap:
1. Experiment, if you like, creating other actions. And there are a lot of preset actions, too, in CS -- you might try these out for fun on other photos you have. This should give you a clear picture of how these automated things work in Photoshop.

2. Don't freak out if you put a step in your action that you really didn't want to do. You can always go back and take it out by unchecking the check mark to the left of the step.

3. As I mentioned, when you pull up the first image and start the action, you'll only have to do the border once.

4. Here's a little tip you might try, one of those "just in case" things: If you really have a lot of images, and you're afraid you'll apply this automated border to all of them and it might wind up wrong, make a backup copy of the images in their original state. Then if you don't like the looks of the bordered pics, you can always go back to your originals.

And guess what? When I gave you those instructions, and did the movie, I was using Photoshop CS -- which is version 8.0. I think I got off on a tear the other day working this out for you, and didn't realize I'd done it in CS, when you were working with Elements! Ack! But it sounds like I didn't miss the mark, if you're going to work with CS after all.

Elements is a good program, there's no doubt about it. But then again, so is Photoshop CS (version 8). I think it all depends on one's personal needs and level of use as to which you buy. And some people have both -- I have Elements on PC, and CS on Mac.

So let me know how this goes! And thanks again for your kind comments.

Lisa