Actions are a sequence of events that you want to repeat over and over exactly the same every time. It’s like telling your computer to, “…do this, then this, then this” in that order. For instance, in Illustrator you can simply hit Cmd + “D” to duplicate what you did just before. You can’t do that in Photoshop. That’s where actions come in.
To streamline my workflow, I use actions to perform tasks I do over and over again all day long. In my case, I have an action set to simply select the same fill color in Illustrator and I assigned it the function key F6. I have F2 assigned to clear the guides in both Illustrator and Photoshop. These little things help all day long and free up a lot of time so you can be creative instead of drudging through the menus.
To set up new action, open the actions palette in Window > Actions. Think of them as a DVR or VCR. Once you hit record, the program will start recording what you’re doing. Stop once you’re finished and you can play the action back again and again on most anything in your document. It doesn’t matter how complex the sequence is either. You can make them to do small things or a complicated list of things. It’s simply up to you and what will suit you the best.
Later down the line, once you get used to actions you can set them up to batch process multiple amounts of entire documents in just a few clicks. This comes in handy when resizing images and saving them in different formats or resolutions just as an example. You’d be amazed at how fast you can do things if you learn how actions work. I suggest messing around with them to get the hang of what they can and cannot do, then put them to use in your everyday workflow.
Just with everything else, SAVE YOUR ACTIONS; especially in Illustrator. I’ve never had a problem losing anything in Photoshop but sometimes AI will toss your actions and you have to set them up all over again and that’s a pain! Of course, that was on a PC too. 
That’s it for this one. Like I said, if you want to be competitive in the real world, how good you can make something look isn’t the only thing you need on your side. You also need to do it quickly in order to meet those sometimes-ridiculous deadlines. Practice these tips and make them work for you in what you do and you’ll be amazed at how much time you can save.
Have some tips of your own that you love to use? Share them in a comment below.
Tags: actions, apparel, Graphic Arts, Illustrator, Photoshop, shortcut keys, Workflow
