Step 16: Set Selection

We're almost at the end of our step-by-step journey through the Photo Corners action in Photoshop. Set 16 is Set Selection, and if we twirl it open to view the details, we see that it tells Photoshop to set the selection to "none":

What the heck does that mean, setting a selection to none? Well, as you may have noticed, the language Photoshop uses to describe the details of steps in the Actions palette isn't always so easy to follow. Setting a selection to "none" is Photoshop's way of telling us that it's going to deselect the selection. You'll find yourself getting better and better at translating Photoshop-speak as you gain more experience with using actions. I'll play the step, and when I do, the four selection outlines disappear in the document window:

Step 17: Select layer "photo corners"

Moving along, we come to step 17, Select layer "photo corners", which is another one of those straightforward steps that doesn't require any additional details. It will simply select the "photo corners" layer in the Layers palette:

I'll play the step, and we can see in the Layers palette that the "photo corners" layer is now highlighted in blue, telling us that it's selected:

Step 18: Set Layer Styles of current layer

With only a few steps remaining in the action, we come to step 18, Set Layer Styles of current layer. As you can probably tell from the name of the step, this one adds a layer style, or styles, to the currently selected layer. Layer styles can easily be recorded as part of actions. In this case, if we twirl open the step to view the details, we can see that we're about to add a drop shadow to the image on the "photo corners" layer. The settings that will be used with the drop shadow are also included for us, with a Distance of 2 pixels and a Size of 4 pixels:

After playing the step, we can see a slight drop shadow effect added to the image on the "photo corners" layer, although it's a bit hard to see in the screenshot since it's such a subtle effect:

Step 19: Select layer "4 corners"

Only three more steps to go. Step 19 is Select layer "4 corners", another simple step with no additional details needed:

This step will select the "4 corners" layer in the Layers palette, and when I play it, we can see that the "4 corners" layer is now selected:

Step 20: Set Layer Styles of current layer

With just two steps left to go, the second last step in the Photo Corners action looks very similar to step 18 which we looked at a moment ago. It's also named Set Layer Styles of current layer, which again tells us that our currently selected layer (the "4 corners" layer) is about to have one or more layer styles applied to it. This time, it will be a Bevel and Emboss style, with the Highlight Opacity option set to 100%, Style set to inner bevel, and Depth set to 2 pixels:

I'll play the action, and if we look at the image in the document window, we can see that the four white photo corners, which are sitting on the "4 corners" layer, now have a subtle inner bevel effect applied to them, giving the effect a bit of depth:

Step 21: Merge Layers

We've arrived at the final step in the action. Step 21 is Merge Layers, another step which needs no further details. It will simply merge the "4 corners" layer, which is our currently selected layer, with the "photo corners" layer directly below it:

I'll play the step to complete the action, and we can see that the "4 corners" layer has disappeared from the Layers palette now that it's been merged with the "photo corners" layer, which is now the top-most layer in the layer stack:

And there we have it! We've successfully stepped through and analyzed an entire action from beginning to end! If you find yourself using someone else's actions that you've either purchased, borrowed or downloaded for free from a website, stepping through the action like this is a great way to learn how other people are doing things in Photoshop! It's also a handy way of analyzing your own actions when trying to figure out why they don't seem to be working the way you expected (which does happen).

Okay, it's time to edit this action and create our own customized version of it. We'll do that next!

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