Four times the fun

Sometimes we all need a little more, so here we are – four time more and for free!

If you’ve got a photo that needs a bit of livening up or if you just feel like playing in Photoshop then here you go – a Photoshop Action by me called 2×2 that reflects your image in three directs so you end with something quite unexpected and surprising.

Some photos work better than others – branches are good for creating an abstract pattern…

And there’s nothing stopping you reapplying the action again and again…

I think it works particularly well with photos of people…

The possibilities are endless!

Here’s what you need to do.

Firstly – download this file and remember where you saved it:

lemonlight.atn (right-click on link and choose ‘save link as’)

To get this (or any) action into Photoshop you need to do the following…

1. In Photoshop make sure you have the ‘Actions’ palette open (go to ‘Windows’ and ‘Actions’ or press the F9 key).
2. Click open the little twirly menu in the top right of the palette (fig A) and choose ‘Load Actions’ – go to where you downloaded the 2×2.atn file and select.
3. That’s it – all done. You don’t need to do this each time – it will be there each time you open Photoshop.

Now, all you need to to is open an image – any shape, any size, just make sure it’s ‘flattened’ (i.e. no layers). Make sure 2×2 (fig B) is highlighted then hit the ‘play’ button (fig C).

Tada!

That’s all there is to it – let me know how you get on with it, I’d love to see.

+++ U P D A T E +++

lemonlight.atn (right-click on link and choose ‘save link as’)

Great news – this will also work in Photoshop Elements – this is what you need to do…

Copy the lemonlight.atn file to the one of the following locations:

Windows XP
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Adobe\Photoshop Elements\8.0\Locale\en_US\Workflow Panels\actions

Vista
C:\ProgramData\Adobe\Photoshop Elements\8.0\Locale\en_US\Workflow Panels\actions

1. Now, restart Photoshop Elements and go to EDIT.
2. Open an image you’d like to experiment with.
3. Go to ‘EDIT Guided’.
4. Under ‘Automated Actions’ choose ‘Action Player’.
5. From the first dropdown choose ‘lemonlight’
6. From the second dropdown choose ’2×2′
7. Now click ‘Play Action’.

That’s it! You should now see four times the photo you started with :)