NICHOLEVAN’S RETRO ACTION TUTORIAL

Congrats on purchasing my Retro Action and Textures set. I’m confident that my actions will deliver the
results you’re looking for and save you valuable time in the process. I’ve written this tutorial to get you
started on using my urban actions to their fullest potential.

If you would like a good overview of the purpose and general look of each action in this set, please read
the NicholeVan Retro Action Info file that was also included with your purchase of these actions.

What follows in this tutorial is a step-by-step walk through the urban actions, specifically the texture
actions, showing you what occurs at each step. This tutorial assumes that you have
• a basic understanding of how to load and run an action, and
• a general understanding of layers.
If you do not understand these two items, you can find more information here: http://www.arraich.com/

RUNNING THE ACTIONS

The rest of this document will walk you through setting up and running one of the texture actions. The
steps are very similar for each action. This tutorial walks you through the Holga Color action, as it
includes nearly all steps that you will encounter in the other actions within this set.
STEP ONE: BEGINNING THE HOLGA ACTION

To begin playing most of the actions in this set, you need to set up your files correctly. Most of these
actions require a texture file to be open in addition to your photo file.
• Open the photo file you want to apply the action to (See Fig.1, A)
• Open the texture jpeg (included in the large .zip file you downloaded) that you would like to
apply to the photo (See Fig. 1, B). You just open this file as any other jpeg photo file.
• Begin the action with your photo file showing.
• Choose an action to run (See Fig. 1, C). For this example, I’ll be running Holga Color action.
• Press the “play” button on your action palette (See Fig. 1, D).
STEP TWO: RECREATING THE HOLGA LOOK

• After an initial dialogue box, the action stops and asks you to crop your photo to a square. Then the
action will load a crop box that is square. You will want to drag the crop box and make it smaller or
larger to suit your photo. In order to maintain the square crop ratio, be sure to hold down the shift
key as you reposition the crop box. When you’re satisfied, press enter on your keyboard to crop your
photo.
• The action will now prompt you to select your chosen color texture file from your Windows menu
(See Figure 2, A). When done, press play on the action palette (See Figure 2, B).
• Then the action will then ask you to go back to your photo. (See Figure 2, C). When you’re back to
your original photo, press play again on the actions palette.
STEP THREE: ADJUSTING THE EXPOSURE OF YOUR IMAGE

• Now the action will bring up a dialogue box that will ask you to adjust the exposure of your image.
Use the sliders to adjust the exposure of the subject, ignoring how the adjustments may lighten or
darken other elements. You’ll fix that in a minute. When you’re satisfied, press OK.
• Now the action will prompt you to use a large soft brush to paint back the areas that are now too
bright or too dark. Just brush over the areas that you want to restore. When you’re satisfied, press
play on your actions palette.
• The action will then crank on a few adjustments. Don’t worry if this part takes a minute or two to
run.

STEP FOUR: ADJUSTING THE SIZE OF THE TEXTURE LAYER

• This next step will prompt you to adjust the texture layer that will be added to the photo. You will
receive a prompt instructing you to resize and rotate the texture file so that it completely covers your
image. Press “continue” on this prompt. Following the instructions from the prompt, use your mouse
to drag and rotate the texture image so that it fits your photo. Your photo should disappear entirely
behind the texture. Usually, the texture will be too large and you will have to drag the corners of the
texture to make it smaller. You want the texture to fit your image edge to edge without going outside
your image too much. When you’re satisfied, press “enter” on your keyboard.

STEP FIVE: ADJUSTING THE COLOR OF THE TEXTURE LAYER

• The action will now prompt you to adjust the color of just the texture layer. At times, the texture
color is too strong or too light on your image. Using the hue, saturation and lightness sliders when
prompted, slide them to the left and right until you get the desired look to your photo. In particular
with this action, you can use the Hue slider to shift the color tones of the texture.
• When you’re done, click “OK”.
• NOTE: The next step will allow you to adjust brightness and contrast, so don’t worry too much
about that with this step.
•
STEP SIX: ADJUSTING THE CONTRAST AND BRIGHTNESS OF THE TEXTURE LAYER

• The action will now prompt you to adjust the contrast and brightness of just the texture layer. At
times, the texture itself is too strong or too light on your image. Using the contrast and brightness
sliders when prompted, slide the Contrast to the left or right to increase/decrease the visibility of the
texture in your image. Use the Brightness slider to brighten or darken the texture altogether.
• When you’re done, click “OK”

STEP SEVEN: FINISHING YOUR PHOTO

• The action is now complete. You can now begin to tweak the layer opacity to get the look just right.
For info on how to tweak layers, please read the little tutorial in the Retro Info and Tips file.
• In this particular action, notice that you have two tint layers that will allow you to adjust the toning
of the image. Also, the Faded Color layer is extremely helpful. Many actions in this set include a
similar faded color layer. By raising the opacity of this layer, you decrease the color saturation in the
image. This allows you to create a wealth of variety of vintage looks depending on how you set the
layer.

Congrats! You’ve successfully run the Holga Color action! Most of the other actions in the set use a
similar editing pattern to this one, so have fun playing with them all!