Download the Actions: Currently the action set is only availble for download in the technique section of the Digital Wedding Forum (www.digitalweddingforum.com). Why only there? Well, the actions are pretty basic, but I figured that you really ought to become part of the robust group of wedding and portrait photographers where you'll find lots of folks ready and willing to help you enhance your albums and your photography!!! We're actually rounding up actions from numerous folks. So, go ahead, become a subscribing member and you'll have access to the Quick Album Actions, plus a TON more!

How do they work?: The quick album actions are actually only a set of three actions designed to get you started in building your own actions. These specific actions are made for 10x10 inch pages, but could easily be altered to any page size. The Quick Album Actions were designed to simulate a matted album page, yet have complete flexibility.

1.Getting Started: The first thing you want to do is create a blank 10x10 page at 250dpi. Remember this can be altered to any size you want. Click on the 'Build Blank 10x10 Page' action and then press the 'Play' button. The action sets up a solid black layer which we call the 'mat layer' above a solid white later, which is like your 'frame liner'. I also adds guides to assist in image placement. (You must have 'snap to guides' turned on for this work it's best.)

2. Add Image(s): At this time, you'll want to add your image(s) to the page. Figure out what size images will work on your page and work with them. Since this is a 10x10 page, the largest image with a border would be a 6x8 or 8x8, or we could do an 8.5x8x5. That's up to us. For this sample, I'm going to show you a page of two images. The guides are set at 8x5 x 8.5 square, so I'll be fine with two 4x6 images of the same orientation. (remember: 250 dpi for the example, but you can change the actions to whatever dpi you prefer)

I'll place a second image on the right hand side, bottom corner and show you how to make the border frame liner in the next step.

Another option would be to rotate your image at this point.

An image on a black background is nice, but a border makes the design a little more pleasing to the eye. The action 'Straight edge border' is designed to work specifically on the layers created by the 'Build Blank 10x10 page' Action. The border action samples the color within a few pixels of the upper left corner and uses that to clear away 8 pixels of the Mat Layer around any image. In doing so, it makes a nice square corner. To run the action, make sure your selected image layer is active, select the 'straight edge border' action and press play on the action palette. In just a few seconds you'll see the frame liner layer surrounding the image.

After you run the action, you'll see the obvious hole in the mat layer on the layer palette (as shown at right).

From here, you could simply save it unflattened in case you want to make changes later. And/Or simply flatten it and save as a jpg for your lab to print.

But, you could also customize your page... (see next step)

There are lots of things you could do with Photoshop while you still have the image in layers. You can easily change the frame liner color or change the mat layer. I'm going to do both. I'm going to use my eyedropper tool to select the color of the bridesmaids dresses and change the frame liner to that color. All I need to do is click on the 'frame liner' layer and use the fill (or bucket) tool to change it's color.

Ok, for a simple frame liner color change, maybe that wasn't the best color to use, but I'm going somewhere with this!

Once the composite is built, there's a 'stop' that allows you 'fine tune' the horizontal crops. Once you're happy with the composite, press the play button again and the action will flatten it onto a 10x10 page for you. Like the other actions this one can be a springboard to making other actions of your own. An example of the digital composited page is shown below with basic black mat and white frame liner.