How to Recording Actions in Photoshop

Recording an action is relatively simple, provided you’ve thought the steps through ahead of time and are aware of the limitations. It helps to do a test run first. For more-involved actions, I suggest mapping out your steps on a piece of paper before recording. Also, to guard against mistakes, work on a copy of the image by taking a snapshot in the History palette. When you’re finished doing all of your prep work, perform the following steps to record your action:

1. Choose Window --> Actions to open the Actions palette.
2. Click the Create New Action button located at the bottom of the Actions palette, or choose New Action from the palette’s flyout menu.
3. In the New Action dialog box that appears, enter a name for the action and choose which set (of the currently displayed sets in the palette) that you’d like to save it in. Note that all actions must be saved in a set (I recommend that you create a custom set of your own). The New Action dialog also allows you to assign a display color to the action, and allows you to assign a function key for applying the action.
4. Click the Record button in the New Action dialog.
5. Perform the steps that make up the action.
6. After you’ve completed the last step, click the Stop button at the bottom of the Actions palette, or choose Stop Recording from the palette’s flyout menu.

Action Messages
When setting up an action, you can choose to insert a message that displays whenever the action is run. Doing so stops the action wherever the message is inserted and displays a message dialog box. The message can be a reminder or warning such as, “Be sure to save before continuing,” or instructions such as, “Enter your own settings in the next dialog box that appears.” To insert a message, select Insert Stop from the Actions palette flyout menu. In the Record Stop dialog box that appears, enter your message in the Message field. If you’d like to allow the viewer to continue with the action after the message appears, enable the Allow Continue option. Doing so allows the viewer to continue running the action after clicking the Continue button in the message dialog box. With the Allow Continue option disabled, Photoshop stops the action entirely and automatically selects the next step in the Actions palette. The only way for the viewer to continue with the action after the message appears is to click OK in the message dialog box and then click the Play button at the bottom of the Actions palette