This collection of 100 awesome Photoshop action files creates realistic mockups of your designs with the click of a button. Here are a few samples of what you can create (click to enlarge/see details).
Bags
Books
Business Cards
The action collection is a small part of the PSDCovers collection, and is brought to you free by WebDesignerDepot.com.
I’ve linked to a lot of free textures here at The Graphic Mac over the years, and there are tons more to be found with a simple Google search. Quite a few of them are paint splatters or textures that you wish you could drop a white background out of. This can be quite tedious to do manually. Thankfully there’s an easier way that works pretty darn well.
MediaMelitia has a fantastic Photoshop Action set called Background Removal that’s free to download and use. The set includes three different actions to achieve different results. One version maintains the color of the foreground image, the other two remove the white background using the color parts as a black mask, as seen above. They offer clear instructions on the download page, along with when you might want to use the different action files.
If you’re a Photoshop user running Mac OSX 10.4 or 10.5, you should be taking advantage of Apple’s Automator. Automator allows you to string a series of “actions” together to create a workflow. Think of them as shortcuts. The Photoshop Action Pack 3.7 provides 90 Actions which allow you to control a huge amount of Photoshop functions, and execute complex batch operations you just can’t do with Photoshop’s built-in Actions.
The following actions are provided in the new Action Pack:
Add Empty Adjustment Layer
Flip Canvas
Add Graphic Watermark
Gaussian Blur
Add Layer
Glass
Add Watermark
HDR Merge
Arbitrary Rotate
Hue/Saturation
Assign Color Profile
Invert
Assign Custom Profile
Load Selection
Assign Epson 2200 Profile
Maximum/Minimum
Assign Epson 2400 Profile
Mono Gaussian Noise
Auto Color
Motion Blur
Auto Contrast
NTSC Colors
Auto Levels
Ocean Ripple
Bleach Bypass
Open as Raw Data
Change Bit Depth
Open
Change Mode
Paint Daubs
Change Pixel Aspect Ratio
Photo Filter
Change Resolution
Pinch
Channel Mixer
Polar Coordinates
Clouds
Posterize
Color Balance
Purge
Convert to Profile
Radial Blur
Copy Data to IPTC
Reduce Noise
Copy IPTC to Spotlight Comments
Render
Crop
Resize Canvas
Deinterlace
Resize Image
Desaturate
Resize to File Size
Deselect
Resize to X by 10%
Despeckle
Restore Original File List
Diffusion
Ripple
Do Action
Scale Image
Duplicate Current layer
Set Blending Mode of Current Layer
Dust and Scratches
Shadow/Highlight
Edit IPTC Info
Sharpen Edges
Exposure (CS2 only)
Sharpen More
Filter by Aspect Ratio
Smart Blur
Filter by Bit Depth
Smart Sharpen (CS2/CS3 only)
Filter by Color Mode
Sphereize
Filter by EXIF
Strip Extra Channels
Filter by File Type
Swap Colors
Filter by IPTC
Threshold
Filter by Orientation
Trap
Filter by Size
Trim
Fit Image
Twirl
Flatten Document
Unsharp Mask
Use Currently Open Documents
Version 3.7 is fully compatible with PowerPC and Intel-based Macs. In addition to the action bundle, an assortment of sample workflows is provided. The included 73-page manual gives you a reference for all of the included actions, as well as an introduction to using Automator, and strategies for building Photoshop workflows. The Photoshop Action Pack is free, but donations are accepted via PayPal.
