Wondering how to install actions or effects in Photoshop Elements?
One of my first major finds in my quest to improve my photography was Rita at CoffeeShop Photography. This angel straight from heaven automates processes in Photoshop and makes them available FOR FREE to lots of complete strangers just because she is a nice person. There are lots of these actions available, but not all of them work for PSE.
Rita’s PowderRoom action in particular is great – I love the skin softening effect on babies.
As Rita published these actions over the past few months, I noticed that she was getting tons of questions on how to install them in various versions of PSE on various operating systems.
Lord knows I want Rita to concentrate on writing more actions (just kidding!), and I thought it would be a good thank you to her to help with those questions. I dug out all my old PSE disks and installed them on an XP computer and a Vista computer and documented the installation process in great detail.
Some of the folks in the Flickr Photoshop Elements groups (more on those later) have written up great instructions for installing actions. I started with their posts and expanded on them.
I am sending huge thank yous to Dan Rhett, Geoff Chalcraft, Rita and all the other generous and helpful people in the Flickr PSE groups whose knowledge is the source of much of what I am posting here.
Click here to see the instructions. Are they helpful to anyone? I’d love to hear whether they work for you!
I need help installing some actions from coffee shop. I have an Apple computer and I love the actions but I have not seen a tutorial for Apple…HELP. Thank you =)
Stephie
Hi Stephie,
I haven’t used an Apple in many years! I wish I could help you. Good luck!
Erin
Wow!! These instructions are wonderful, and so detailed. Thank you very much for sharing, and helping people out
I love your blog too.
Have a great day
I cannot get my Vista PSE5 to co-operate. There is no Program DATA file in the Control (classic view) folder. I also do not see any option to show hiddens. Help?
o.k. I found that, but it is still not showing a program data folder. Just programs and features.
thanks for the help! I really appreciate it;D
Thank you, thank you! I am a newbie to using actions and have been searching on-line for info about installing them in Photoshop Elements 5. Nothing I found would work right (we use Windows Vista) until I found your directions. Thank you! The directions were so clear and easy to follow.
Hi Sarah,
In the control panel, you are looking for the Folder Options folder. If you look carefully at all the options on the View tab, you will find a radio button to check that says “Show Hidden Files and Folders”. After checking that button, you can navigate through the installation path and you will find the Program Data folder.
Let me know if that doesn’t help.
Erin
[...] One of my first posts discussed the great actions at CoffeeShop Photography. And here are a couple of other sources of free actions for Photoshop Elements. [...]
COULD NOT have done this without your help. I had already looked at two different “help” pages with no luck. My best friend has also spent hours with no success…..I will be sending her your way. Thank you for spending the time!! It is much appreciated…..now I just have to figure out how to USE my CoffeeShop Actions!
Okay, after the holidays, I’m playing. Thanks as always for your tips.
ok, I feel like a REAL dummy here. I’m usually pretty good at following tuts STEP by STEP – but I’m lost here.
I have PSE 5 and Windows XP
#4 says: # Make a backup copy of the thumbs.psd that is in the Image Effects folder. —-what exactly does this mean? at this point everything is still on my desktop in the folder that says PowderRoom2 – do I just right click the one that says Thumbs Data Base file and click copy?????
#5 Open PSE 5, open the action .PSD file and open the thumbs.psd file that is in the Image Effects folder. does this mean go to file, open, desktop, find PowderRoom2 folder and click on the Powderroom2 PSD file? and how do I open the thumbs.psd file???
I’m going to stop there – I am totally confused! Sorry – can anyone help purdy please??? TIA
~Tidymom
UPDATE: – ok, I got #4 and #5 figured out–somehow! LOL
now on #6 With the action .psd file active, right click on the background layer in the Layers palette. there is nothing that says background layer what do I right click on?
I think I got it all installed finally! whew! that was tough~
now when I try to run it – I see it over in the special effects – and it starts up when I double click, but I get a message that says “command “layer by copy” is not currently available” and “the object “background” is not currently available.
have I done something wrong?
Any chance you have instructions for PSE4 with Vista?
Erin,
Thanks so much for the tutorials- I have spent hours trying to figure out how to use the Actions for PSE 7, but with your tuturials, it only took minutes!
I’m so glad the tutorials helped!
Thank you so much! This was in plain English and SOOO helpful! I don’t know how to thank you enough.
Thanks Cali! I am so happy they helped!
Anyone knows how to install these actions in PSE for MAC?
Please help!
THanks for these great tutorials–but I can’t seem to get mine to work. Is there something different for PSE 4 in Vista? I have tried 8 times following your steps exactly. Please help!
Hi Shaylah, I’m sending you an email with some questions that might help.
Hi there. Thank you so much for all your great advice and tutorials. I’ve been following your instructions for installing actions. I downloaded several CoffeeShop actions that worked fine once I rebooted my computer. However, when I went to install the perfect portrait action, I could not find it. I followed your helps and even got to the point where I renamed the ThumbDatabase.DB3 and MediaDatabase.db3 files. I rebooted Elements and now all of my actions have disappeared – even all the original actions I installed. Any idea what happened? I’m worried that renaming those two files might have screwed up other things for me? Is that a possibility?
I can’t begin to tell you how grateful I am for this wonderful website. You have helped more than you know!!
I’m really hoping you can help me with something else related to using actions on vista. I recently bought a new dell with vista and I loaded my photoshop elements 5 to it. I previously had an XP computer and the program worked perfectly. Although in Vista the program loads onto the computer without a problem, I am not able to access any of the dropdown menus in the “artwork & effects” or “layers”. SO, even though I am now able to install actions I am unable to use them. Do you have any idea how to make pse 5 compatible with vista. I already downladed the update 5.0.2 and it didn’t correct the problem. Any ideas???? I am at a total loss. I would greatly appreciate any help you could offer. THANKS!!
Hi Dorie! Thanks for visiting my blog! Did you try the info on this page http://digitalphotographyformoms.net/photoshop-elements-help/installing-actions-in-photoshop-elements/installing-actions-in-pse-5-on-vista/ about deleting the MediaDatabase?
Let me know if that doesn’t (or didn’t) help.
Erin
Can these actions be downloaded onto a vista for PSE4? Thanks
Jacqueline,
I have never been able to get PSE 4 to run properly on my Vista machine. Are you able to work in PSE 4 on Vista? I would love to hear that you can. I can’t say for sure that the actions would work, but they just might. It’s worth a try. The installation method would be some hybrid of the instructions for PSE 5 on Vista and PSE 4 on XP. Let me know if you need help.
Erin
I landed here by way of CoffeeShop Photography, and just wanted to say a thank-you, thank-you, thank-you. I could not have done this without your tutorial! I had tried a few google searches, and none of those instructions helped. Yours were so easy to follow. Again, thanks!
You are welcome! Thanks for the comment!
I run PSE5 on XP and found you via Coffeshop. I’d never believe I’d run an action before I found the two of you this weekend – but here I go – your tutorial works excellent. Thank you so much!
Hugs, Irene
[...] Installing PSE Actions [...]
THANK YOU! Your explanation was very easy to understand!
I am looking for instructions for PSE 7 on Windows 7 – can you help?