So now that you've made an action (see here for the creation of an action) or discovered one that is really useful, you'll undoubtedly want to run it on a whole folder of images. Batch processing files can be done a few different ways. You can use the Image Processor or Dr. Brown's 1-2-3 Process which have been covered in previous articles, or you can use the Automate function in Photoshop. Since the Image Processor and Dr. Brown's 1-2-3 Process methods have already been covered, I'll focus on Automate.

To run a batch action simply go to File, then Automate, then Batch. The Batch dialogue box that pops up is one of the "big-n-scary" variety. But looks can be, and usually are, deceiving. The layout is actually fairly straightforward so let's look at each section.

The first section is titled "Play" and contains the action sets and individual actions to choose from. Choose your set in the first drop down menu and the action you want to run in the drop down menu underneath.

The second section is titled "Source", and as the name implies, this is where you choose the location of the files you want to run your action on. In the drop down menu to the right of the word "Source" you will see four options; Folder, Import, Opened Files and Bridge. Selecting Folder will allow you to choose a folder on your hard drive as the source folder containing the files you want to process. Typically you will never use Import so I won't even bother. The Opened Files option allows you to run an action on any files that you have open in Photoshop and the Bridge option allows you to run an action on any files that you have selected in Bridge.

Underneath the "Choose..." button there are four check boxes.  First is the Override Action "Open" Commands. What this does is override any "open" command you might have built into your action that specifies a certain filename. The "open" command then refers to the batched files instead of the files specified in the action. You only need to check this if you have an open command in your action.

Next is the "Include All Subfolders" check box. With this box checked you are telling Photoshop to go ahead and run the action on all folders that may be nested inside your source folder. If you do not have any subfolders inside your source folder or you want any subfolders you might have left alone, leave this checkbox unchecked.

Suppress File Open Options will stop any dialogue box from opening that prompts you for some kind of input as the files are opened by the action. You typically want this check box to be checked.

Suppress Color Profile Warnings will stop any profile mismatch dialogs from opening as the files are opened by the action. This check box should also be checked to avoid interruption in the action.

The next section is called "Destination" and it is here that you select a destination folder for the processed files to be saved into.

You get one more check box here that can be a little confusing. Under the "Choose..." button you'll find the Override Action "Save As" Commands check box. Remember in the previous article, "Build A Simple Action" I recommended adding a Save step in your homemade action? That was because without that save step, the action would be applied to your source files, but they would not be saved, thus defeating the purpose of making your own action to run on multiple files. So with this box checked, Photoshop will override the Save step for the specified files in your action, and apply it to the files that are to be batched. Basically, if you have a save step in your action, you should have this box checked.

Underneath that headache you have the option to rename the saved files. In the drop down menus of the File Naming section you have several methods of renaming your files. I recommend a file naming scheme similar to this: Event-BW-001.jpeg or Event-sepia-001.jpeg.  An example of what this would look like in the dialogue box is pictured below.

The very last option is called Stop For Errors and it does exactly what it sounds like it does. If an error occurs during the batching process, the whole deal will stop and give you an error message.