Free Photoshop Actions
If you want the best free Photoshop actions, you've come to the right place. But what are Photoshop actions? Well, Adobe's flagship image editing software has an inbuilt programming language that completes hours of design work in just one click. Photoshop actions record tasks as an 'action' and replay the steps to complete the task automatically - a pretty cool timesaver.
Free Photoshop Actionsthink about it. In the world of design consider what kind of organization would offer you Photoshop Actions for FREE? Well, in this case it is not VandelayDesign. However, we have spent some time searching the depths of photography and design on the web to provide you with a list of 45 free downloadable Photoshop Actions. You can either create your own actions or take advantage of the many that are freely available from the community of Photoshop users. This post is a collection of 60 actions (actually more since many of them contain multiple actions) for touching up or enhancing photographs.
Not only can you record your own Photoshop actions, you can also import free Photoshop actions. This opens up a whole range of shiny new effects and an opportunity to learn them, saving you huge amounts of time now and in the future. Your projects will look better than ever.
We've rounded up the best free Photoshop actions in this list, but if you feel inspired to expand your Photoshop skill set you can head over to our roundups of the best Photoshop plugins and Photoshop brushes, great for photographers, graphic designers, game artists and more.
You can jump to the section you want right now from the drop-down menu above, but you should definitely bookmark the entire list of free Photoshop actions to check out the rest later – who knows where inspiration will strike.
Free Photoshop actions: Photo filters
01. Deep Matte
This free Photoshop action does exactly what its name would suggest. It will give your image a super-strong matte finish. If you want a lighter matte finish, they have a basic version too, but we love the intensity of this one.
02.Double exposure
This awesome free Photoshop action creates a professional double exposure effect instantaneously. When the action has finished, you can add a colour tone or gradient to your image to complete your composition. You have to register with the site (for free) before you can download, but the site has so many great free Photoshop actions, it's definitely worth it.
03. Color Pop
Give washed-out photos an instant burst of colour with this free Photoshop action from Shutter Pulse. One of its set of 14 Boosters Photoshop Actions, it comes as part of a free bundle of 20 Lightroom presets and 20 Photoshop actions, and it'll bring any photo a much needed dash of colour and constrast.
04. Pastel Effect
Another way to breathe fresh life into your photos is with this set of 40 pastel effect Photoshop actions; they'll provide instant light enhancement and beautiful colour toning at the touch of a button, and transform ordinary shots into something much more Instagram-worthy.
05. Mystical Light
Give your photos an other-worldly air with this Photoshop action from Megan Joy. It'll infuse landscapes with a magical purple haze, enlivening any shot with an ethereal purple haze and giving any location the atmosphere of a mysterious fairy dell.
06. Instant Hipster
For those times you want to give your photos a one-click Instagram effect, Instant Hipster's the perfect solution. It comes with 10 ready-made filters – Amaro, Mayfair, Hudson, Valencia, X-Pro II, Willow, Sutro, Hefe, Nashville and 1977 – so you can find just the retro effect you need in seconds.
07. Nightmare
If your photos just aren't sinister enough for your liking, this free action should make things a little more unsettling. It's designed to let you easily give your photos a dark, haunting effect. Perfect for creating the impression that you're permanently about to stumble into mortal danger.
08. Cold Nightmare
This amusingly-titled action will transform a photo of a perfectly innocent scenario into a window into a dark world. In this example image, the archer probably shooting at a target takes on the look of someone who is definitely trying to kill a human. It’s amazing what some shadows can do.
09. Summer Haze
If you'd prefer to cheer up your images, take a sunny shot and make it intensely summery with this great turquoise haze effect. Outdoor portraits taken in natural light are most suitable for this filter.
10. Hazy Afternoon
Perfect for outdoor pictures, the Hazy Afternoon action certainly lives up to its name by creating a soft gradient colour layer. You can use this free action on black and white or colour images, plus you can easily adjust the gradient until you get the exact look you're after.
11. Sun Kissed
Light up any image with this comprehensive collection of sunlight effects that'll brighten and tone even the drabbest landscape. Simply add a bit of a warm tone, or go the whole hog and throw in a setting sun complete with a lens flare effect; it's all there.
12. HDR Action
Remove the lack of contrast that comes with HDR photography with this set of four actions; HDR fix Light, Normal, Heavy, and Clicker.
13. Strong HDR Effect
Alternatively, try getting vibrant colour effects with this free HDR filter from Shutter Pulse. If it works well for you but you’d like more options, it’s part of a set of 30 HDR actions that you can buy for $13.
14. Blue Evening
Blue Evening is the free component of a paid-for set called Touch of Drama, which gives you various ways to add a mysterious atmosphere to your shots. The strength of the blue cast depends on your starting colours, so click through to see a good selection of examples.
15. Night to Twilight
This set of 11 actions convert your nighttime images into twilight photos by introducing a colour cast and lightening the sky. The effect is rendered using layers, so you can adjust the degree of twilight by reducing the layer’s opacity, making it nice and flexible.
16. Purple Contrast
This free Photoshop action washes out some of the colour from an image and gives it a purpley hue. It's a good way to give your photographs a dramatically downbeat look.
17. Bella
This action adds a beautiful warmth to your photographs, bringing out rich tones in hair and skin, and softening colours with a pink cast that creates a romantic, nostalgic feel.
18. Wedding Enhancers kit
Photoshop actions are extremely useful for wedding photographers dealing with a huge number of shots. Here you get a set of 11 actions that automatically create common portrait effects, especially around the theme of wedding photography. The set includes skin smoothing and soft filter effects as well as black and white conversion.
19. Photoshop Color actions
A nice range of colour treatments including rich, grainy black-and-white, bleach bypass, and some heavy casting effects. Great for experimentation.
5 must-have tools for creatives
Free Photoshop actions will help you transform an image to something jaw-dropping in a matter of seconds. Most of these actions do every single step for you, while others simply direct you through the necessary steps to achieve the end goal.
Using free Photoshop actions is a great way to automate the use of the tools in Photoshop. It works by loading an ATN file into Photoshop that's been pre-loaded with all the necessary steps to edit an image, sometimes into something entirely different, normally with just a few mouse clicks. They're easy to use and will give you fantastic results.
The free Photoshop actions below can turn your image into a pencil drawing, portrait, an old photo, a Polaroid, a sticker, add a reflection, whiten teeth, and much more.
If you're looking for more ways to transform your Photoshop creations, check out these free Photoshop brushes, textures, templates, filters, and shapes. There are also lots of free alternatives to Photoshop if you're looking for an editing program.
You can normally double-click an ATN file to open it. If that doesn't work, ensure the Actions palette is open from the Windows menu in Photoshop, then click its small menu item (near the top right of the Actions panel), and choose the Load Actions option.
Some of these Photoshop actions are downloaded in RAR files. Choose a free file extractor like 7-Zip or PeaZip to unzip those ATN files.
Pencil Draw Photoshop Action
This Pencil Draw Photoshop action works really well. It works by turning the whole photo into one that looks as if it was drawn with a pencil. The result of this action will place the sketch layer on top of the original.
Activating it will prompt you to adjust the blur of the new layer. As you adjust the blur to the left, the picture will look more like a sketch, whereas the other direction will produce a more realistic photo that simply looks black and white.
Once added to Photoshop, this action is called Propias, or Dibujo if viewing your actions in Button Mode.
Out of Bounds Photoshop Action
The Out of Bounds Photoshop action does nearly all the work for you to create an effect as if an image is popping out of its frame.
Two actions are included in this download — one for a flat image and one for a curled image like you see in this bottom image. In my opinion, the curled image makes for a nicer look.
This action is very advanced, and while you can alter the shadowing effects and positions of the frame and image with ease, you must manually select the part of the picture you want to pop out. However, it's actually not too difficult for beginners as long as you follow along closely to the instruction prompts.
You must register for a free account with PanosFX.com before you can see the download link.
Portrait Photoshop Action
This free Portrait Photoshop action, is best achieved on a portrait, such as the one I have here. You'll be asked to alter the sharpness and saturation manually, which means you could use the same image multiple times but come up with a different effect each time based on how you customize it.
This action is a bit more complex than the others in this list because not all of the steps are automated, but there are easy to follow instructions on the download page.
Reflection Photoshop Actions
Create a really cool reflection with this free reflection Photoshop action. It comes with three actions — one for a regular reflection below the image, another that's identical to the first but for transparent pictures, and one that splits the image into three parts like you see here.
You can adjust the background colors, border size, reflection height, and other effects to get the perfect outcome.
You can't see the download link for this action until you sign up for a free PanosFX.com account.
Teeth Whitening Photoshop Action
This teeth whitening Photoshop action is perfect if you need a guided tour through whitening teeth, but it doesn't do everything for you automatically.
After starting the action you'll be told to select the teeth using one of the selection tools. Then click play after doing so to finish the action.
You can double-click the adjustment layer icon called Whiteness and adjust the Lightness to make the teeth as white as you want. Just don't go too white or it may not look very realistic.
Folded Paper Photoshop Action
Use this folded paper Photoshop action for an awesome folded paper look. The image is still readable but sits as if it's in 3D with shadows strategically placed behind it.
Everything in the image will take part in the effect, so ensure nothing else is on the canvas but the paper that you want folded. The background, layers, and gradient overlay effects are fully customizable after the action runs.
This action installs with the name www.psd-dude.com (Folded leaflet).
You must create a free PSDDude account to access the download.
Old Photo Photoshop Action
The Old Photo Photoshop action produces a nice effect, but it can take a little patience to use.
After starting the action, you must stop it when prompted, then start the action again and browse for the texture file from the ZIP download.
A large issue I have with this action is that it resizes your canvas and flattens all the layers. Because the canvas becomes a new size, your image will be stretched to fit it, and you must manually stretch it again to make it look like the original.
This Photoshop action is called Old photo in the folder called ArtOfDecay-Stock Actions.
Break of Day Photoshop Action
The break of day Photoshop action creates an old, dusty look to any image.
It's best to use a square image for this action. If you're not, when the action has finished running, you may need to resize the top layer so the gradient effect isn't so obvious.
Vivid Blur Photoshop Action
The free Photoshop action, vivid blur, is very simple, as it merely applies a strong contrast with a Gaussian blur, but the effect looks pretty nice.
The action takes just a moment to apply and will create a new layer on top of the original one. You must keep both layers present for the effect to remain, or of course merge the layers before saving it.
Vectorize Photoshop Action
The right half of this image has a the free Photoshop action vectorize, applied twice.
This Photoshop action applies filters and blurs, adjusts color, and more to produce this effect. You must make some of the changes manually, but you're prompted to do so, so they're not hard to perform.
After applying it once, I found that the image I used didn't create the effect I wanted. But you can easily double it like I did by simply running the action again after the first time.
There's also a cartoon action within this download, and it's called Cartoon_Vector once added to Photoshop. It produces a darker image that appears to be more of a sketch.
Stickers and Tape Photoshop Action
The stickers and tape Photoshop action is really nice. It can create an image that looks taped down, as well as an image that looks like a round sticker pealing off paper.
The tape can be created anywhere on the paper because the tape layer is completely adjustable after running the action. You can also make air bubbles under the tape for a more realistic look.
When the action completes, the border and background effects are 100% editable so you can truly customize how it looks.
Run the Clear Tape action to create the effect you see here in this picture, or choose Round Stickers for the sticker option.
Sticker Photoshop Action
Stickers are a bit raised off a piece of paper, and, similar to the above action, that's what this free Photoshop action aims to imitate. It produces a sticker around the image, though, and doesn't necessarily create a round sticker.
Just remove the background of an image and then run this action to create what you see in this above image — a thick paper-like border with a light shadow to give it a 3D look.
This action will create a new layer in Photoshop and lay it top of the original image. You can then edit the shadow effect to make it less or more prominent.
This action is called DS_Sticker Action New from the Actions palette.
Click the example image on the download page to find the download button.
Polaroid Generator
Produce a nice Polaroid effect with this free Photoshop action. The action itself is kind of messy, requires you to click two different actions to make it work, and is also a bit slow to finish, but it's worth it in the end.
You must first run the RUN ME FIRST action and then choose another one, such as Type 600 Black&White for a black and white Polaroid. Others are available to keep the photo colored.
Something I like about this action is that once it has finished running, you can move the image around within the Polaroid frame to get the right shot you're looking for without having to re-launch the action.
Rainy Day Photoshop Action
Use the free rainy day Photoshop action to create either a photo that appears to have rain falling or one that has rain on the camera lens. It seems you can go either way depending on how you adjust the settings.
Free Photoshop Actions 2018
Once you run the action, you'll have full control over the size of the rain drops, fog, and other settings. These are prompts that will show and give you instructions for what to do for making smaller/larger drops, etc.
I appreciate the fact that you can alter the different effects and opacity of the layers even after the action as ran. This makes it easy to manipulate the effects without having to start over from scratch.
Run MAIN ACTION, then Little Drops and Condensation to complete the whole effect.
Abbey Road Photoshop Action
Use the free Photoshop action Abbey Road, if you need a quick, usually subtle change. I was able to apply the action in just a few moments with the effect you see here.
There's also an additional folder of actions in this file that applies a few quick brightness alterations.
If viewing your actions in Button Mode, Acción 54 is the name of this particular action once opened in Photoshop.
Go Boom Photoshop Action
Go Boom is a free Photoshop action that shows you the different settings you need to manipulate to make a neat, retro-like photo.
Some of the prompts you'll be presented with is Gaussian Blur, Gradient Fill, Curves, Hue/Saturation, and Vibrance settings.
Once the changes are made, the image will appear as a new Smart Object layer without affecting the layer you started with.
Old Tones Photoshop Action
This free Photoshop action changes the hue, adds a grainy feel, sharpens the image, and creates adjustment and fill layers to create the effects you see in the images above.
After adding this action to Photoshop, find it by looking for the name Lieveheersbeestje Old tones V9.
Skin Glow Enhancement Photoshop Action
As the title suggests, the Skin Glow Photoshop action is supposed to make your skin glow, and I think it does a decent job.
The action doesn't target just the skin of a photo, but instead the whole thing. But I think the overall effect provides a semi-professional look and may even serve as a quick solution to removing skin blemishes due to the blur effect.
Look for the name iscarlett1 or action1byiscarlett in Photoshop to use this action after you've installed it.
Sepia Photoshop Actions
Warm up your photos with this sepia tones free Photoshop action. There are 7 different actions that you can choose from to create a different effect for each one you choose.
After you add this action to Photoshop, it'll be called Sepia actions - freaky665, with each different action in its own subfolder.
Darker Effect Photoshop Action
The darker effect action comes with three separate actions that each do something a bit different to the colors of the image, but you can still customize them once they've been ran.
Use the above image as a guideline as to how each action will perform. Once the Photoshop action has done its job, you can still alter the effects like shadows, color overlay, etc. from the Layers palette.
This action is called Color Effect once it's been installed into Photoshop.
Photo Coloring Photoshop Action
The photo coloring Photoshop action creates some fill layers, changes the layer mode, and makes numerous color changes to enhance the photo's colors to create an effect similar to the picture you see here.
I've learned that this Photoshop action takes a particular type of image to make it look nice — it won't work on everything.
More Free Photo Editing Resources
Here are some other Photoshop freebies that will make your images really stand out.
If you're looking for some free additional photo editing resources, you'll want to check these out.