Didn't you always wish there was a way to make your life just a little bit easier? Well with using Actions in Photoshop you're one step closer to making that wish come true. While your Actions palette isn't going to do your laundry or take the dog for a walk, it will help you to automate some of the more common tasks that you do when you're working with Adobe Photoshop.
In this series, we'll take a look at how you can use your actions in Photoshop and how you can create your own actions in order to simplify some of the common tasks that you perform.
To begin, we'll open up the Actions palette and take a look at what we have available. You'll find your actions palette on the far right hand tab of the same palette where your Layers are located. Or, you can go to Window, Actions to display the palette automatically.
Now, if you haven't used your Actions palette then you're likely just to see the Default Actions listed in the window. A quick scroll through that list probably isn't going to impress you much, since these default actions are just a way of setting up your Photoshop work space to accommodate for the project that you're working on. What we're more interested in are the actions that really show some immediate results.
If you click on the tiny arrow in the upper right hand corner of your actions palette you'll be presented with a menu for your actions palette. Included in the bottom of this menu are the pre-installed actions that the good folks at Adobe decided to bundle along with Photoshop.
If you're using Photoshop CS2, then some of your available action sets will include Commands, Frames, Text Effects, and Image Effects along with a few others that you can play around with.
To get you more familiar with some of the fun you can have with actions, select the Image Effects action set from the list. Immediately a list of pre-installed Image Effects will load into your actions palette and you can scroll through the list to get a quick idea of what you have to choose from.
Next, open a photo or other image that you would like to experiment with. Be sure to make a copy of your image, so you don't destroy your original image.
With your image now open, it's time to put some actions to work. With the pre-installed actions you can quickly make the photo look aged, add a blizzard effect or even make it appear as if it's raining. Try out these actions by selecting the one you want and then clicking the “play” arrow at the bottom of your actions palette. Immediately you'll see Photoshop going to work playing through the set of instructions that are coded into the action. To see these instructions, simply click the little blue arrow immediately to the left of the action title to expand a list beneath that action. That list will include all of the commands that have been recorded within that action so you know exactly what is being done to your image.
Once the action has completed the list of recorded commands, you'll immediately get to see the results that it had on your image. If you don't like the results, then don't worry. Simply close out the copy without saving any changes and reopen to try again, or click onto your layers palette and delete any layers that were created by Photoshop during the process of the action, leaving only your original background image.
Experiment with all of the pre-installed actions to see what kinds of effects you can create with images and text.
In the next Actions tutorial we'll take a look at how you can create your own actions, just in case the ones you already have aren't good enough!
Today, we announced the availability of Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.3 and 8.2. For more information regarding the security details in these releases, please see Security Bulletin APSB10-02.
As mentioned in a previous blog post titled Adobe Reader and Acrobat Updates Include New Security Improvements, we have been shipping a new “beta” updater technology in a passive state since our October 13, 2009 quarterly update. The purpose of the new updater, once activated, is to keep end-users up-to-date in a much more streamlined and automated way. Today, we are testing the new updater with a subset of our end-users, who previously signed up for the beta program. This is the first time we've exercised the new updater with “official” updates, which allows us to test a variety of network configurations encountered on the Internet in order to ensure a robust update experience. Over the next few weeks, we will be analyzing the test results and will continue communicating important details with you, including when we expect it to be active for all users, which could be as soon as our next update.
We also talked about the introduction of the Adobe Reader and Acrobat JavaScript Blacklist Framework in that same blog post. The Framework provides customers granular control over the execution of specific JavaScript API calls. The purpose of the new JavaScript Blacklist Framework is to provide protection against attacks that target specific JavaScript API calls. As mentioned in Security Advisory- Adobe Reader and Acrobat, we were able to recommend this risk mitigation strategy during our recent zero-day exposure window. The JavaScript Blacklist Framework worked as planned and we had positive feedback from customers who were able to utilize the mitigation effectively.
As mentioned in Adobe Reader and Acrobat JavaScript Blacklist Framework Mitigation for Security Advisory – APSA09-07, if you deployed the mitigation to a “non-locked down” area, Adobe will automatically reset the Blacklist Framework with the 9.3 and 8.2 updates. But, if you deployed the registry key setting to a “locked down” area, then you will need to reset that value yourself.
Finally, as described in an earlier post, Adobe Reader and Acrobat Version 7 End of Support, support for Adobe Reader and Acrobat 7.x (as well as Adobe Reader UNIX 8.x) has ended, and Adobe strongly recommends updating to newer versions.
Important: Still using Acrobat or Reader 7?
Adobe no longer supports or patches for Acrobat/Reader 7 and earlier.
These versions and all previous versions are missing critical updates and users are recommended to upgrade.
For more information, see Adobe Support Policies.
NOTE: As described in Adobe's Supported Product Versions, Adobe Acrobat Professional 7.x and Adobe Reader 7.x support ended on December 28, 2009.
Read on to learn more about why it is important to keep Acrobat up to date.
Why Keep Acrobat Up-to-date?
Adobe Reader and Acrobat are an interesting target to hackers in some ways. These products have some browser-like capabilities, connect to the internet and interact with the file system.
I've previously written about how Acrobat can be extended via JavaScript to add all sorts of new capabilities. Indeed, there are a great many customers who take advantage of this.
Unfortunately, JavaScript can be used in some malicious ways. Hackers try to embed JavaScript in a document which could deliver a malicious payload.
To help you keep your software up to date, the Adobe Updater periodically checks with our servers and alerts you if a new update is available. You can also check yourself at any time by choosing Help—> Check for Updates.
It is alarming to me how many customers I talk to do not keep Acrobat up to date.
Quite simply, not patching is bad. You put you, your clients and your organization at risk by not keeping your software up to date.
Security Alerts
If you are in IT or just curious, you can sign up for the Adobe Security Notification Service.
The Adobe Security Notification Service is a free e-mail notification service that Adobe uses to send information to you about the security of Adobe products. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Security Blogs
Adobe has several Security-related blogs which are interesting reads, especially if you are on the geeky side.
The Security Matters Blog offers general insights about Adobe products and security.
The Adobe Reader Blog often covers security topics and will definitely be of interest to IT folks who deploy Reader.
Adobe Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) has a blog that covers security across all Adobe products or interactions with operating systems and other tools.
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