Hello and happy November! Can you believe we are on the cusp of the holiday season beginning? Well if your holidays are like mine, you are short on time and long on things to do. How do we fit everything that needs to be done AND scrap a little for ourselves? Well, one way is to take short cuts whenever possible and I have a great one for you today.
Since our time is precious, let’s not waste any time trying to repeatedly resize, sharpen, and save each and every layout for our gallery at The Lilypad! Instead, I’m going to teach you how to make your own action that will do just that so you can spend more time creating (or doing laundry, but who wants to do laundry??!!) And the best part?? Once you learn how to create an action, you can make more and more actions! For instance, The Lilypad allows layouts up to 800x800, but some galleries only allow layouts to be resized to 600x600. All you have to do is create an action for each layout size and then it’s simply a matter of playing the correct action to resize your layout. Easy peasy I promise and you’ll save so much time!
Okay, now that I’ve tried to convince you that you too can make an action, let me show you what I mean. I’ll try to show you the steps with some visuals so it’s not so overwhelming.
1. First, you need to create a folder to store all your resizing actions. That way you can stay organized which will also help save time. To do that, click the little file folder in your actions panel and create a new set. You will need to name this folder. As you can see I called mine “Resizing for CT”. Original. I know 😊
2. Now, with that file open, go to your actions
panel and click on the 'Create New Action' button, name it something like Resize
800,' and hit the Record button.
3. Next you will need to duplicate your layout so
you aren’t changing the original. You
don’t want to make any changes to it, especially if you are going to print the
page! To do this, go to Image>Duplicate. It doesn’t matter what you name it (you will
be deleting this version) so I don’t change mine.
4. Now, go to Layer>Flatten.
5. So this step is where you will actually resize
the layout. Go to Image>Image Size
and fill in the size you want. For The
Lilypad you can choose 800 x 800 pixels and Resolution 72 dpi. (Tip: Make sure you change the resolution first) Remember, this is YOUR
action. If you want to create one for
600x600, simply fill in those numbers instead!
6. For this step, you will need to sharpen your
layout to keep all those gorgeous elements and papers looking nice and crisp. Go to Filter>Sharpen>Smart Sharpen. You can copy my settings or use whichever ones
you like. Use the little preview to help
you select your value.
7. Okay now
let’s export your layout. Go to
File>Export>Save for Web. Click on
the dropdown Optimize menu and select Optimize to File Size. TLP has a rule that your layout can’t be over
250k so this is what I have used here.
After this is done, hit the Save button.
8. Once you
have hit Save, then you need to close your duplicated, resized, and sharpened
image by going to File>Close. The program
will ask you if you want to save it, just select no since you already have!
9. Now you
can hit the Stop Play button in the Actions Panel to finish recording.
10. One last
thing is to go to your Actions Panel and then click on the “Toggle Dialog On and
Off” box across from your Export step.
Why you ask? This is so that the
action will stop at this point and allow you to save your layout to whatever
folder and name you desire. This way you
will always be given the opportunity to save your layout before your action
closes.
Whew!! You did it!!
You wrote your very first action!!
Now take this information and go write another one with a different
value for resizing. I promise you it
gets faster and faster with each new creation!
I hope this helps you and feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions!
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