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Module 6 • Lesson 2⚙️ Advanced Actions & Conditionals

If you have done a task twice, Photoshop can do it a thousand times. Actions record your exact steps; conditionals let one Action branch on what it finds; batches run it over a folder; droplets turn it into a file you drag images onto. This is where hours become seconds.

📚 What You'll Learn

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

  • Record a clean, reusable Action and re-order or re-record steps
  • Insert stops, menu items, and modal pauses for input
  • Add a Conditional so one Action handles landscape and portrait differently
  • Batch an Action across a folder and save out automatically
  • Build a droplet — a drag-and-drop executable for your workflow

⏱️ Estimated Time: 50 minutes

🎯 Project: A single Action that resizes, sharpens, watermarks, and exports — branching by orientation — then batched across a whole folder.

In This Lesson

👤 The Goal: Do It Once, Run It Forever

The same 200 images to prep for the web. On the right, by hand: open, resize, sharpen, watermark, save, close — repeat until your afternoon is gone. On the left, one Action batched over the folder does all 200 while you get coffee. Drag the handle:

Batched By hand
A diagram of the principle. The setup cost of recording an Action is paid back the second time you run it — and every time after is free.

🧠 Mental Model: Record, Branch, Batch

An Action is a recorded macro: you hit record, perform your steps once, and Photoshop stores them as a replayable list. A Conditional is an if inside that list — "if the document is landscape, play the Landscape action; otherwise the Portrait one" — so one Action copes with mixed input. A Batch points an Action at a folder and runs it on every file; a droplet saves that batch as an icon you drop files onto.

Two rules make Actions reliable. Record with the right units and relative moves (percentages, not fixed pixels tied to one image size), and remember that Actions capture what you did, not what you meant — so record on a representative file and test on odd ones.

Record if landscape?conditional → wide crop → tall crop Batch ▶
Figure 1: Record once, branch with a conditional, then batch the whole thing. One Action, mixed input, no supervision.

🎬 The Actions Panel

Open Window ▸ Actions. Group related Actions into a set, hit the record button, and every eligible step you take is logged. You can drag steps to re-order, double-click a step to re-record its values, toggle a step off, or add a modal (the dialog icon) so the Action pauses for you to confirm settings on each run.

Actions
📁 Delivery set ▾ Web Delivery ✓ If Document Is Landscape… ✓ Fit Image — 2000 × 2000 px ✓ Unsharp Mask — 80% / 1.0 / 0 ✓ Place — watermark.png ✓ Flatten Image ✓ Save As — JPG (quality 10) record · play · stop
Figure 2: A recorded delivery Action. The conditional runs first, then Fit Image scales the long edge to 2000 px. Checkmarks mean the step runs. Flatten Image before Save As merges the watermark so the file can be saved as a JPG. A step with its dialog toggle on (▣, in the column beside the checkmark) pauses for input, so every toggle is left off here for a hands-off batch. Re-record any step by double-clicking it.

⚠️ Record relative, not absolute

An Action that crops to "1080×1080 from position 340,120" breaks on a differently sized image. Image Size records fixed dimensions, so use File ▸ Automate ▸ Fit Image (e.g. 2000 × 2000) to scale by the long edge. Set Preferences ▸ Units & Rulers to Percent before recording crops and selections so they play back relative to each image. Test it on your weirdest file before trusting a batch.

🔀 Conditionals & Batch

From the Actions panel menu, Insert Conditional… lets a step ask a question about the document or the active layer (Document Is Landscape, Portrait, or Square; Document Mode Is RGB or CMYK; Document Is 16 Bits Per Channel; Document Has Layers; Layer Is Type or Smart Object) and play one Action if true and another if false. There is no condition for pixel size or for a layer's name. Chain a couple and one Action gracefully handles a mixed folder.

To run it, File ▸ Automate ▸ Batch: choose the Action, a source folder (or "Import"), a destination, and file-naming rules. Tick Override Action "Save As" commands so files land where you say. For a reusable icon, File ▸ Automate ▸ Create Droplet writes a small app; drop any images or folders onto it and the batch runs.

✅ Suppress dialogs for a hands-off run

In Batch, tick Suppress File Open Options Dialogs and Suppress Color Profile Warnings, set Errors to Log Errors To File, and leave the Action's dialog toggles off so nothing stops the run halfway. A true batch should complete 500 files without asking you a single question — that is the whole point.

🛠️ Guided Build: A Delivery Action

Gather a folder of mixed landscape and portrait images to prep for the web.

Step 1: Record the core · 10 min

  1. Window ▸ Actions ▸ new set "Delivery", new action "Web Delivery", Record.
  2. File ▸ Automate ▸ Fit Image at 2000 × 2000 px (it scales the long edge to 2000), Unsharp Mask, Place your watermark PNG, Layer ▸ Flatten Image (a JPG can't hold layers), Save As JPG. Stop recording.

Step 2: Add the branch · 10 min

  1. Set Preferences ▸ Units & Rulers to Percent, then record two tiny helper actions in the same set: "Crop Wide" (for example a 16:9 crop) and "Crop Tall" (for example 4:5). When they're recorded, set Units & Rulers back to Pixels (scripts and later lessons assume pixels).
  2. In Web Delivery, select the first step, then panel menu ▸ Insert Conditional: If Document Is Landscape play Crop Wide, else Crop Tall.
  3. The conditional lands below the selected step, so drag it to the top of the list. Crop first, then Fit Image, so the final long edge is still 2000 px.

Step 3: Batch it · 8 min

  1. File ▸ Automate ▸ Batch: Action = Web Delivery, Source = your folder, Destination = an output folder, tick Override Save As, set naming.
  2. Run. Watch the whole folder process untouched, landscape and portrait each cropped correctly.

Step 4: Make a droplet · 6 min

  1. File ▸ Automate ▸ Create Droplet, point it at Web Delivery, save the droplet to your desktop.
  2. Drag a folder of new images onto it. Instant delivery set, no Photoshop menus. 🏆

✅ Project Completion Checklist

  • ☐ A recorded, relative delivery Action (Fit Image, percent-based crops)
  • ☐ A conditional branching landscape vs portrait
  • ☐ A batch that runs the folder hands-off with Override Save As
  • ☐ Errors logged, no mid-run dialogs
  • ☐ A working droplet on the desktop

🧗 Now You: Solo Variation

🌟 Your challenge

  1. Record an Action that outputs three sizes of each image (thumb, web, print) into three subfolders in one run. Batch it with Destination set to None (not Override Save As), because Override sends every save to the single Batch destination.
  2. Add a conditional that only processes layered masters: If Document Has Layers, play the full delivery; else play a lighter "already flat" version. (Conditionals can't look for a layer by name. For that kind of test you need a script.)
  3. Build a droplet a non-Photoshop colleague could use, with a Stop step that explains what to do if something looks wrong.

Going further: Actions can't loop or read a spreadsheet — when you hit that wall, the next lesson's variables and scripting take over. Note down the tasks Actions couldn't handle.

🍳 Recipe Card: Actions & Batch

Record once, run forever

  1. Window ▸ Actions → new set + action → Record relative steps (Fit Image; rulers in Percent)
  2. Insert Conditional to branch (landscape / portrait / square / mode)
  3. Insert stops / modals only where human input is truly needed
  4. File ▸ Automate ▸ Batch over a folder, Override Save As, suppress dialogs, log errors
  5. Create Droplet for a drag-and-drop reusable

Mantra: if you'll do it twice, record it once.

📓 Learning Journal

Add to your journal after this lesson:

  • Key concepts you learned
  • Techniques that clicked for you
  • Questions or confusion points to revisit
  • Ideas you want to try
  • Your progress and feelings about learning this

✍️ This lesson's prompt: List three repetitive tasks in your own workflow. For each, could an Action do it, or do you need a conditional or a script? Sorting them is the start of automating your practice.

📝 Lesson Summary

🎓 Key Takeaways

  • An Action replays recorded steps; record them relative (Fit Image, rulers in Percent) so they survive varied input.
  • Insert Conditional branches on the document or active layer (orientation, mode, bit depth, layer type), not on pixel size or layer names.
  • File ▸ Automate ▸ Batch runs an Action over a folder; Override Save As, suppressed dialogs, and logged errors make it hands-off.
  • A droplet packages that batch as an icon you drag files onto.

🎉 What You've Accomplished

You built a delivery Action that crops by orientation, resizes, sharpens, watermarks, and saves, then ran it over a whole folder and wrapped it in a droplet. Work that used to eat an afternoon now runs while you do something else.

❓ Common Questions at This Stage

My Action works on one image but breaks in the batch. Why?

Almost always an absolute value: a fixed crop, a hard-coded Image Size, or a named layer that doesn't exist in every file. Re-record those steps relative (Fit Image, rulers in Percent), and add conditionals to route files that don't match your assumptions.

Actions vs droplets vs scripts: when each?

Use an Action for repeatable steps, and a droplet to hand that Action to someone else as a drag-and-drop icon (it runs when files are dropped on it; it doesn't watch a folder). Reach for a script when you need loops, math, external data, or decisions Actions can't express. They stack: scripts can even call Actions.

Why did all my files land in one folder when I wanted subfolders?

Override Action "Save As" Commands redirects every save to the Batch destination. If your Action saves to its own folders, set Destination to None and let the Action's Save As steps decide.

🔭 Looking Ahead

Actions replay fixed steps; they can't read data or loop with logic. When the job is "make 300 badges from a spreadsheet," you need Lesson 6.3 — Data-Driven Graphics & Scripting, the Module 6 deliverable, where variables and a little JavaScript take automation the last mile.

✅ Before the Next Lesson

  • Batch your Web Delivery Action over a mixed folder with no mid-run dialogs.
  • Save a droplet and test it on a fresh set of images.
  • List the tasks Actions couldn't handle, and write your Learning Journal entry.

📚 Additional Resources

🌟 Encouragement for the Journey

Every minute you spent recording and testing this Action pays you back on every folder from now on. You have started thinking like a studio, not just an editor: do it well once, then let the machine repeat it.