Do you have a cool formula for black and white conversions, or maybe sepia? The real question is, are you sick of going through the steps to make your favorite black and whites or sepias every time you open a new image? How about making it into an action that will perform all those steps with the push of a button?

Making an action is easier than it sounds. With your image open, go ahead and open up the actions palette. If your actions palette is hidden, go to Window - Actions.  At the bottom of the palette you have a few options. The three icons on the bottom left should be grayed out and if you try and move your cursor over them you'll get the circle with the line through it telling you that you can't select those. To the right of those you have the option to create a new action set, create a new action and delete an action or set. It's probably a good idea to create a new action set to contain any actions you make. Click on the Create New Set icon. A small New Set dialogue box opens up prompting you to name your new set. Give it a name like My Homemade Actions or something you will equate with your own personal actions.

Next, with the new set selected, click the Create New Action icon. Now you get a slightly larger dialogue box. First thing to do is give your new action a name. Under that you'll see the new action set you created but you can still change the set at this point should you choose to. Directly underneath the action sets you'll see an option to assign a function shortcut key to your action should you need to use it on a regular basis. Either select just the function key you want to use in the drop down menu, or check the Shift and/or Control checkboxes to add those keys to the shortcut. For example, if you selected F2 as your function key and checked the Shift checkbox, then you would press Shift + F2 to run your action. If you do not want to mess with assigning a keyboard shortcut simply leave the box at None. The last option in the New Action dialogue box is Color. If you want you can assign a color to your action button if you are viewing your actions in Button Mode. I recommend that you leave the Color option alone as it is much easier to organize your actions in folders.

After clicking OK, nothing will happen! Basically, the action palette is in record mode. If you look at the record button at the bottom of the palette it will appear as a red dot now. Photoshop is now going to record each task you perform until you hit the stop button, which is to the left of the record button. After you've finished going through all your steps I recommend going up to File and choosing Save As before hitting the stop button.

As an example, I will make a simple black and white action that you can follow along with if you'd like.

1. Click Create New Action (after you've created a new set)

2. Name the action

3. Click Record. Notice the record button is highlighted.

4. Press Shift + Ctrl + U (Shift + Command + U for Macs) to desaturate the image. Note, Desaturate is now the first step listed in the action.

5. Press Ctrl + L (Command + L for Macs) to bring up Levels.
*As a matter of personal preference you can choose to reveal certain adjustments during the course of an action by clicking the Toggle Dialogue on/off next to that step in the actions palette.

6. Set the shadows to 15 and the highlights to 240, then click OK. Note, Levels is now the second step listed in the action.

7. Press Shift + Ctrl + S (Shift + Command + S for Macs) to Save As.

8. Give the file a new name, set the JPEG quality level to 10 and press Save. Save will now be the final step in the action.

9. Press the Stop button to the left of the Record button.

10. That's it, you're done! Be sure to save your actions by selecting your action set and selecting Save Actions in the Actions palette options.

*Note: This was obviously not the best method of black and white conversion but it did illustrate the creation of a simple action. To delete any action simply highlight the name in the actions palette and click the delete icon (the trash can). Similarly, you can delete certain steps in an action by selecting them and clicking the delete icon.