Photoshop Actions

One of the editing resources that are awesome are photoshop actions.  There are some really great ones out there, and they help save time on editing.  I know when I first discovered them I got so excited!  I also didn't know much about them.  I thought that all you had to do was run the action and magically you'd have an AMAZING looking photo.  That's not exactly the case.  The actions are basic editing tools.  You will still need to tweak your photoshop action to fit the individual photo.  Once you run the action, you will want to go into your layers and change the setting on some of the settings.  Also you might want to mask part of the action off of part of the picture such as skin on people.  Sometimes they can make your subject look unrealistic. 

This is the original image I took.  I did make a few tweaks to it already to make it look good.  I love the leading lines in it, and I love the way the sun light is in one corner shining down to the trees.  However I think this image would look much better if it had more of a vintage look to it.  I decided to run one of my favorite free actions that I found It's called Vanilla Sky. 

And this is what I get.  I really love the tonal look that this image has now.  I am all about vintage and this action really has it. *NOTE I didn't just run the action to get this look.  I did make a few changes to the action while I was running it to make it fit my image and individual taste*

Both images are good images, so it just depends on your preference.