Photoshop 101: Button-Mode Actions
I guess this could also be categorized as a workflow tip, but it’s good to know, no matter what you want to call it. I’d like to take a second to show you about Photoshop’s (and Illustrator’s) “Button Mode” in the actions palette. If you aren’t familiar with actions, they are customizable tasks that save you time and make you more productive by eliminating redundant tasks. I haven’t written an article on Actions themselves yet, but here is a nice one I found on the web.
Actions save you time, yes, but you might notice when you create them that Photoshop gives you the option to designate a keyboard shortcut to run the Action. While this is a good thing, I actually prefer to use “Button Mode” for all of my actions. I do this because of 2 reasons. 1) I have so many hot keys set up that I wste too much time trying to come up with keyboard shortcuts that aren’t set up for another task already, and 2) I don’t have to remember all the exotic hotkeys for actions that I constantly edit and/or delete.
With button mode, you can activate an action with a single click. Here’s how to enable button mode:
Click on the palette options in the upper right to enable Button Mode. It may be in a different place on the list for other versions of Photoshop. (CS3 shown here). Note – Illustrator also has button mode.
And now you have button mode. The only thing I don’t like about button mode is the fact that you have to disable it in order to edit, record, or change an action, but It save me lots of clicks in the long run.
Tags: Actions, Button Mode, Photoshop, Workflow
you wouldn’t believe some of my key combos for my actions. thanks for the tip! it is going to save my fingers a lot of over stretching.
I am ofting using actions, just didn’t notice those button mode – thanks for pointing that out.
This tip really is great, it’ll save a lot of time. Thank you!
I used to use button mode after i found it years ago, but when i download actions from sites, i actually like to see what is being done and therefore, have switched back to the Standard Mode. This way if an action isn’t “quite right” I can adjust it or create a new action based off one and then go off on a tangent.
I also remember that you could change the colors of the buttons so all the web actions could be Blue or all the texture actions could be Orange and that is another helpful tip (if they still kept that feature).
Hm, I think I have to learn use actions. Great post, thank you.
nice.its very helpful.thanks as always
Ronald
Actions can save a lot of time on your work.
wow, where do you find these magical tricks? Awesome as usual. Thank You.
I always use scripts for this sort of actions but the button way will save me much more time!!
Thanks for sharing…
I heard about this button mode some time ago, but now I will surely use this. And yes, actions are real time savers for a long run.
Great tutorial, this has saved me allot of time. thanks…
[...] Button Mode Actions [...]
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Fantastic button. Great post.