Hello and welcome to Indigo Production's PhotoShop Tips and Tricks.  We have decided to share some of the many fun tips, tricks and techniques that we have picked up over the years, through many hours of sleepless nights, in the form of PhotoShop Actions.  PhotoShop Actions are macros that you can create in PhotoShop to automate repetitive tasks.  All you have to do is download the action file from our site and load it into your PhotoShop Action Palette.  To load a new action, you simply go to the Actions Palette, select Load Actions from the extended menu on the side of the palette dialog box, and choose the action file you would like to load.  By default, all action files are stored in the Actions folder under Goodies in the PhotoShop program folder and have a file extension of .atn.  Refer to your documentation for help with loading action.

Why are we giving these to you in the form of actions and not just telling you step by step how to accomplish these effects?  Well, basically, we just don't have the time.  Besides, you will have much more fun breaking these apart and seeing how the individual steps all contribute to the final result.  Really!  I know I always learn something new from other people's techniques, no matter how simple they may seem, that I can incorporate into my own style of 'PhotoShopping'.  With each action, we will try to include different small techniques that make up the building blocks of more complex finished results.  We hope you enjoy them and have a little fun with them.

Anyway, let's get started with our first action, called 'The Vampire Blood Action'.  This one came about by accident one day while trying to achieve some completely different effect.  It uses Curves and a few stock filters such as Plastic Wrap in ways you may not have thought of before.  Sometimes the usefulness of a filter isn't always apparent when run by itself.  You open up one of your vacation photos in PhotoShop and run a filter like Plaster on it and go, "Man!!  That's messed up!"  You then chalk it up as a filter you probably won't use again.  However, when combined with other techniques, in one of several steps in an overall process, some of these filters have some surprising little secrets hidden with in them.  You click here, you click there, and all of the sudden, "Whoa, how the heck did that just happen?!!"  Just look at this one.  This was one where I looked at the output and said "Thank you Adobe for the History Palette."  Otherwise, I probably never would have remembered what I had done.

Shown here is the final result of the Vampire Blood Action.  I'm still amazed every time I watch this one run.  Especially when you look at the 'before' images.  There are just a few things you need to do to set this one up before using the action.  First of all, the blood action is designed to work on a 72dpi file.  If you would like to use it for print resolution, you will have to dissect the action for the individual steps involved and reproduce it on your own.  This action is also only guaranteed to work in PhotoShop 5.5.  It may work in 5.0, but then again, it may not.  I'm fairly certain it will not work 4.x, however.   5.x actions are not backwards compatible with version 4.

OK, let's begin.  The first thing you will need to do is download the Vampire Blood Action here and load it into your PhotoShop Actions Palette.  Next you need an image.  You will need to start with an image of black text on a white background.  For consistent results, I recommend starting with the same size file I used to create the action.  An 8x5 inch, RGB file with a white background.  You can experiment with other file sizes later.  Next you will need to add some text.  The text I used was 200 point ITC Souvenir with tracking set at -75 and anti-aliasing set to crisp.  I set the letters close together so that the blood runs together from letter to letter.  Call me sick, but I like that.  Give yourself plenty of room on each side of the text, because this effect will splatter a bit.  My original is shown here (reduced to 4X2.5 for the Web).  Also, make sure you use large letters.  Small type will get lost in the ooze.

Next you need to flatten your image and add a few drips here and there to enhance the effect.  Here is my image just before running the Action.  You don't have to be too neat with your paint strokes.  Just use a round brush with a hard edge and just sort of slop the picture up a bit. ( Note: I have also included a Blood Action Version 1.5 that uses the Wind and Stamp filters to add some dripping and oozing for you.  For those people that don't like to get blood on they're hands and do the dirty work themselves, you can download it here.)

Once you complete this step, let's make sure your image is all set before running the Blood Action.  Make sure your image is flattened and there are no extra alpha channels other than the red, green and blue.  Highlight Blood Action from the Actions Palette and click play.  The bloody letters will be on they're own layer, so you can drag them onto any background you wish.  I like to add a little lighting effects to enhance the appearance.

Be sure to experiment with different words, different sizes, different blobs and see how it works.  We hope you enjoy these actions.  Email Us or sign our Guest Book and let us know what you think.  Send us some of your final images.  Have Fun!!