Support for SandStorm Photoshop Action

• Make sure your Photoshop document is setup in RGB color mode. To check this, go to the menu, ‘Image > Mode’

• Your Photoshop document must be setup in 8bits/channel. To check this, go to the menu, ‘Image > Mode’

• If a brush file (.abr) file is included in the download, then it must be loaded into your brushes panel inside Photoshop before running the Action. I will also notify you of this step at the beginning of the video tutorial.

• If the Action requires brushes for it to work, please ensure your brush opacity is set to 100% before playing the action. If brushes are included in the download, then they must be loaded into the brushes panel and set to 100% opacity before playing the action. This step is demonstrated at the beginning of the action tutorial. Also ensure ‘Use Pen Pressure for Opacity’ is turned off. – see image below.

• Check your Photoshop document is setup at 72DPI or greater. To check this, go to the menu, ‘Image > Image Size’ and then refer to the ‘Resolution’ number.

• Do not use .PNG, .TIFF, .RAW, .PSD image types with the Actions. Photoshop disables various features for different file types which can cause errors in Actions. Please convert your images to .JPEG files to use with the Actions.

• Do not use the Actions on low-resolution images. I recommend running Actions on photos in the range of 2500px – 5500px for 2 reasons – 1) The quality the effect will be far superior to lower resolution photos. The effects will appear really crisp. 2) If you are using low-resolution images, you increase the likeliness of the Action running into errors or creating undesirable results.

• Do not use the Actions on logos, text or clip art style illustrations. Some Actions may work some may not – as Sevenstyles Actions are intended for use on photos only. The more color and contrast in your photos, the better the results will be. Since logos and text often lack color range and detail, they are not suited for use with these Actions.

• Avoid using the Actions on near pitch black or white photos. Photos that are predominately black or white often lack detail and contrast. The Actions may have a hard time finding enough detail in your photo to create the effects if the area that you brush is all black or white. You can try boosting the contrast/brightness in your photo before running an Action to increase the amount of detail in the final effect.

• When brushing over your photo, do not brush very thin lines. This is only applicable if the Action you are using requires you to create the ‘brush’ layer (I will notify you of this at the beginning of the Action tutorial). Actions generally use the pixels within the area that you brush to create the effects. So if you only use a 2-pixel brush for example, then the Action only has a very small amount of space to create the effects, which can lead to errors.

• When brushing over your photo, do not brush with a very low opacity. The area that you define on the “brush” layer is the area which will be used by the Action to create the effect. So if you brush very faintly onto the “brush” layer, then Photoshop may have trouble grabbing enough visible pixels to perform certain tasks, which will ultimately cause errors.

• If the Action requires you to create a ‘brush’ layer, do not duplicate your photo layer and call it ‘brush’, it must be an empty layer. I notify you at the beginning of each Action video tutorial if you are required to create a ‘brush’ layer.

Once you have unzipped your downloaded Action file, it will look similar to the image below.

Here are some important points to note about the contents of your download:

• The + symbol on the Photoshop version folder indicates that Action version has been tested and working on all versions beyond that folder version. For eg. The image above has a + symbol on the ‘CC+’ folder, so the Action inside that folder will work on Photoshop CC and ALL versions beyond Photoshop CC. If you are using Photoshop CC 2017 and there is no specific CC 2017 folder, then you use the next lowest Photoshop version folder with the ‘+’ symbol on it. If there is no specific folder for your version of Photoshop, then there was no Action update required for that Photoshop version.


• The ‘Readme.txt.’ file contains a link to the video tutorial. It also contains file setup instructions, but I recommend watching the video tutorial.


• If there is a ‘.abr’ file included in your download, then that file must be loaded into your brushes panel before playing the Action. A .abr file is a Photoshop brush file. These brushes are used to create specific effects which the Action needs. An example of a .abr file being loaded into the brushes panel can be seen at 4:15 of this tutorial. If there is no .abr file included in the download, then that specific Action does not require any brushes to work.

Unfortunately, this will always be a possibility as Photoshop evolves and makes changes.

The way Photoshop Actions work is quite similar to code. If one thing stops working, the whole program will likely break. There have been some very small changes Photoshop have made over the years which have affected Actions, but nothing too dramatic that I have not been able to fix.

With every Photoshop update, I quickly run through several of my Actions to test whether there has been any Photoshop functionality changes that affect Actions. If there has been, I identify the issue and then proceed to test all 100+ of my Actions to see if they have been affected, I will then work to update each Action that has stopped working.

This process of checking the Actions and updating them can take a few days to a few weeks, depending on how many Action are affected. If all 100+ of the Actions are affected, then it could take a few weeks for me to fix them and then re-upload them all.

What if you want to use the Action right now while waiting for me to update them?

Well, there is a quick and easy solution! For Creative Cloud subscribers, you have the ability to load earlier versions of Photoshop. This means that no matter what happens in the future, once an Action has been tested and working on a specific version of Photoshop, it will always work on that version!

In the unlikely event of a major Photoshop update that completely destroys an Action and is unfixable by the author, this option of additional versions of Photoshop will always be available to you!

The release of Photoshop CC 2018 required that I update the Actions listed below.

If you are now using CC 2018 and you downloaded these Actions before October 19, 2017, you will need to re-download that Action from your ‘Downloads’ area and install the Action found inside the ‘CC 2018 +‘folder. Each Action listed below has been tested and working.

Watercolor - Vintage – Hand Drawn – Smoke - Fire - Glory - Lines - Storm - PolyEx - Grunge - Circles - Tekniq - Synergy - Energy - Charcoal - Sundance - Shatter 2 – Firestorm - Grunge 2 – Explosion - Fracture - Sparkler - Canvas 2 – Spectrum - Flex - Fragment - Eclipse - Rising Sun

Please make sure that for any Action that requires brushes to be loaded, that ‘Pen Pressure for Opacity’ is disabled prior to running the Action. I noticed that after the update this option became enabled by default, which can create lots of errors.

Photoshop’s release of CC 2017.0.1 required that I update 4 Actions. If you have purchased any of the Actions below before December 15 2016, you must re-download the item from your downloads area and install the Action found inside the “CC 2017.0.1+” folder.

Liquify 2 – Fury - Blades – Vintage

If you are receiving emails regarding item updates from Sevenstyles, you will need to follow the instructions outlined in that email and re-download that item from your downloads area on Graphic River. You will only receive an email once the updated item is ready to be re-downloaded.

All other Sevenstyles Actions have been tested and working on Photoshop CC 2017.0.1.

Photoshop’s release of CC 2017.0.0 required that I update 15 Actions. If you have purchased any of the Actions below before November 4 2016, you must re-download the item from your downloads area and install the Action found inside the “CC 2017+” folder.

Grid – Cell Shader 2 – Energy – Canvas 2 – Vintage – Dripping Gold – Blades – Flames – Cosmic – Fury – Shimmer – Canvas – Fractal – StarDust – Liquify 2

If you are receiving emails regarding item updates from Sevenstyles, you will need to follow the instructions outlined in that email and re-download that item from your downloads area on Graphic River. You will only receive an email once the updated item is ready to be re-downloaded.

All other Sevenstyles Actions have been tested and working on Photoshop CC 2017.0.0.

Photoshop made a bug fix update to Photoshop CC 2015.5 on the 10th August 2016. This update required me to update a series of Actions which I have now completed and re-uploaded.

If you are receiving emails regarding item updates from Sevenstyles, you will need to follow the instructions outlined in that email and re-download that item from your downloads area on Graphic River. After you have downloaded the updated item, replace your existing Action with the new action found inside the “CC 2015.5+” folder.

You MUST update your Photoshop to version CC 2015.5.1(or greater) which was made available on the 10th August 2016 from your Adobe Creative Cloud. Some users are attempting to use the updated Actions on the first release of Photoshop CC 2015.5 which will have errors because that initial release of Photoshop CC 2015.5 had bugs. To check you are using CC 2015.5.1 or greater, go to the menu, ‘Help > About Photoshop CC…‘

After you have updated Photoshop and installed the new action inside the “CC 2015.5+” folder, you will be set to go. Each item I update I test across several photos to ensure the bugs have been fixed.

Below is the complete list of updated and fully tested actions for Photoshop CC2015.5.1 (or greater). No other Sevenstyles Action has been affected by the Photoshop update. If you have downloaded any of the actions below before August 10 2016, you will need to re-download the file from your downloads area and load up the action inside the “CC 2015.5+” folder.

Sandstorm - Lines - Fury - ModernArt – Dispersion 2 – PolyEx - Synergy - Soft Focus – Architekt - Lively - Hyperfuze - Amplify - Flux - Konstruckt - Fire - Destrukt - ModernArt 4 – Fury 3 – Grid - Rise - Cosmic - Liquif 2 – Sparkle - Forge - Fearless - Moonstone - Color Splash – Shimmer - Liquify - Paradigm - Plasma - Watercolor & Pencil – Grunge 2 – Charcoal- Street - StarDust- Impasto - Strokes - Canvas - Abstract

Sevenstyles Photoshop Actions are designed to help save you lots of time and effort. Even for Photoshop experts, re-creating these effects manually could take hours per photo. However, with the Sevenstyles Photoshop Actions you can get the effects created with a just few clicks and in under 2 minutes! The best part is that you don’t even need to know how to use Photoshop!

After each Action is complete, you have full layer control to tweak the design as you wish. Each action comes with a comprehensive video tutorial teaching you how to set up your Photoshop file as well as in-depth layer customization techniques that can really make your design pop. Here is my YouTube channel.

The actions can also act as a learning platform for Photoshop beginners. As everything remains layered after the Action is complete, you can study how the effect has been built as well as making your own adjustment to the layers to learn how that can affect the design.

In addition, the Sevenstyles Photoshop Actions can help you make money. Below are some ideas to get you started…

• Sell photos on stock photo websites – You can use the Actions to add visual effects to your photos to sell online on a photo marketplace like photodune. Adding visual effects to your photos can give you the competitive edge and help get you more sales.


• Sell art prints – Use Actions such as Artist, Watercolor, Oilpaint,Sketch, Hand Drawn, Lines and ModernArt (1,2,3 and 4) to create artistic prints which you can sell.
  
  
• Get more design jobs by completing projects faster – these actions will take off hours and hours of work for you, why not use these extra hours of freedom to get more jobs!


• Create a design service – You could create a service offering to add visual effects to peoples photos. Once you get familiar with a Sevenstyles action(s), you could be creating lots of designs within an hour. Why not use this speed to your advantage and attract customers who dont have Photoshop and who may want these effects added to their photos?


• Referral cut earnings- Earn income by referring customers to sevenstyles actions.
  

The common cause for errors in actions are corrupted Photoshop preference files. This can cause an action to throw unusual errors that prevent the action from completing. Most of the time you don’t even know they are affected. This is generally the case if you have not run a Photoshop action before, in a very long time or have upgraded to a newer version of Photoshop.

Here is more information about the preference files

If you have checked the file setup instructions in the video tutorial, looked over the solutions to your error on this help page and are still experiencing errors across multiple photos, then I recommend resetting the preference files. I suggest to email me first to see if corrupted preference files are the cause of the error you are receiving.

To reset your preferences, hold down Alt, Ctrl, and Shift keys (Mac: Command, Option, Shift) while starting up Photoshop. A dialog box will appear asking if you wish to delete the preferences/settings file. Delete it and then run the action again.

If you are using Photoshop CC, you can also reset your preferences by going to the menu ‘Edit > Preferences > General’ and then selecting ‘Reset Preferences on Quit’.

If you still receive an error after resetting the preference files, test out the action on another photo. If you receive the same error then there may be an issue within your Photoshop or the setup of your PSD file – if you only receive the error on one photo, please send me your PSD file so I can investigate and help you out. All I need in your psd file is your photo and ‘brush’ layer created. If you can also indicate what version of Photoshop you are using along with the first error you see – this will just help speed up the process of solving it for you.

Below are a few more things to try that have proven to solve errors:

1. Try purging the history as this can sometimes clear out any problems. To do this go to the menu Edit -> Purge -> All. This is a great thing to do every time before playing an action.
2. Restart Photoshop
3. Re-download the action from your downloads area
4. Install the action into your root Photoshop directory
5. If the action requires brushes for it to work, firstly make sure you have loaded them into your brushes panel and secondly ensure the brush opacity is set to 100% before playing the action.
6. If you are running the an Action on Windows, when opening up Photoshop, right click on the Photoshop load icon and click ‘Run as Administrator’.

Below are some common errors/questions with solutions

This error can show if Photoshop has released a new update with bugs. This is not an issue with the Action.

I recommend enabling ‘Legacy Compositing’ in your performance settings. Go to the menu ‘Edit > Preferences > Performance’.

After enabling ‘Legacy Compositing’, restart Photoshop and run the Action again.

If you do another Photoshop update, try disabling Legacy Compositing to see if Adobe has fixed the bug.

If you are using an Action which utilises the art history brush then you may get this error.

The art history brush takes a snapshot of the opened state of your photo to refer to during the Action playback. If you open your photo and make changes to it such as cropping, trimming, using the Image Size or Canvas Size commands, or rotating any amount other than 180 degrees it will create the error.

If you make any changes to your photo, save it, reopen the photo and then run the Action to remove the error.

This error can show on Windows OS when Photoshop does not have administrative privileges to perform certain tasks.

If you are getting this error, close down your Photoshop. When you go to reopen Photoshop, right click on the Photoshop start icon and select ‘Run as an administrator’. If you would like to permanently set Photoshop to run as an administrator, then right click on the Photoshop start icon and select ‘Properties > Compatability’ and then check ‘Run this program as an administrator’.

If Photoshop is freezing during the Action playback and you need to force quit Photoshop, you may need to disable ‘Use OpenCL’ under your Graphics Processor Settings.

Navigate to ‘Edit > Preferences > Performance’, then under ‘Graphics Processor Settings’ select ‘Advanced Settings’. In the pop-up window, uncheck ‘Use OpenCL’. Now restart Photoshop and play the Action again.

Photoshop disables the ‘Twirl’ command in action playback on very large photos. Try scaling down your photo into the range of 1500 – 4000px and running the action again.

Please check you have the checkbox ticked for “Add Copy to Copied Layers and Groups” inside the layer panel options. To locate this, go to the top right hand corner icon in the layer panel and select Panel Options. This is also demonstrated at the beginning of each video tutorial.

When an error pops up saying a layer is missing, Photoshop has failed to create a layer that is needed to complete the action. Even though the action has commands recorded to create the layer, sometimes Photoshop can do strange things in the play back of the action and essentially skip over a step.

This is Photoshop at fault and not the action itself. Methods such as resetting your preferences, re-installing the action or restarting Photoshop have proven to solve this. You can also try re-download the action from your downloads area.

To ensure that it is your Photoshop in question – please run the action on another photo. If you do not receive the same error, please email me your PSD that is creating the error. If you do get the same error, this confirms that it is your Photoshop and you will need to investigate using some of the above mentioned methods.

Also ensure you are brushing a large enough area over your photo before running the action – though it is very unlikely that this will cause the problem.

This error is most commonly caused by incorrectly setup Photoshop files. Please ensure you have watched the beginning of the Action video tutorial to see if you have set up your file correctly. Below are the solutions to this error:

• Double check you have created your ‘brush’ layer to brush onto before playing the action. This step is covered at the beginning of each video tutorial. Also, ensure you have spelled ‘brush’ all in lowercase letters and with no spaces. The action will not work at all if there is an uppercase letter.


• Ensure you have loaded the correct action for your version of Photoshop – i.e. if you use CC2015, use the action found inside the ‘CC+’ folder included in the download. If you use CS6, use the action found inside the ‘CS6’ folder. If you receive an item update email, follow the instructions in that email and re-download the Action from your downloads area. You then need to replace your existing Action with the updated one you have just downloaded.


• Make sure you have loaded the brushes into your brushes panel before playing the action. If there are brushes included in the action download ( ’.abr’ file ), then it must be loaded before playing the action or you get this error.


• Make sure you are using the English version of Photoshop.


• If you have done everything above and are still getting errors across mutiple photos, please reset your preference files. To do that, hold down Alt, Ctrl, and Shift keys (Mac: Command, Option, Shift) while starting up Photoshop. A dialog box will appear asking if you wish to delete the preferences/settings file. Delete it and then run the action again. If you are using Photoshop CC, you can reset your preference files by going to the menu, ‘Edit > Preferences > General’ and then selecting ‘Reset Preferences on Quit‘


• Lastly, email me if you are still stuck. Indicate in your email the action you are using as well as your version of Photoshop. My email address is sevenstylesinfo@gmail.com

This error is specifically associated with the SandStorm Photoshop Action.

The error is caused by corrupted user preference files. Firstly test the action across a few different photos, if you get the same error message then please reset your preference files.

To reset the preferences, hold down Alt, Ctrl, and Shift keys (Mac: Command, Option, Shift) while starting up Photoshop. A dialog box will appear asking if you wish to delete the preferences/settings file. Delete it and then run the action again. You can also reset your preference files on Photoshop CC by going to the menu, ‘Edit > Preferences > General’ and then selecting ‘Reset Preferences on Quit’.

This error occurs when Photoshop cannot find enough visible pixels to make a selection. This can happen in a few situations listed below.

• If the action requires brushes for it to work, please ensure your brush opacity is set to 100% before playing the action.
• You have brushed over your photo with a very faint brush. Please use a brush with 100% opacity when brushing onto your ‘brush’ layer.
• You have only brushed a very small area or very thin lines. Most of my actions use the area within the area that you brush to create effects out of – so it is important you create a large enough brushed area to avoid Photoshop running into selection errors.
• In some rare cases, the resolution of your document might be set to something very small like 1. Ensure your document is set to 72dpi or greater before playing the action.

1. Check the resolution of your document. This often appears if your document has a resolution of 1. Sometimes you will not know this until you check it.


2. Go to the menu Image—> Image Size and check that your photo Resolution is NOT lower than 72. Use a range between 72-300


3. This error can also show if your photo is too small. Please avoid using photo’s under 800px. The smaller your photo the less pixels Photoshop has to create certain effects. If it cannot find enough pixels it may throw an error.


4. Try running the action again, this time brush a much larger area over your photo. A lot of the action effects are created using the pixels within the area that you brush. So if you brush a very small area, the action then only has a small amount of pixels to create the effect.

Below are the solutions to this error:

• If the Action you are using requires brushes to be loaded, please check you have loaded them into your brushes panel before running the Action. An example of this can be seen at 4:15 of the Watercolor Photoshop Action tutorial. Check the beginning of the video tutorial for the Action you are using to see if brushes are required for that Action. A good rule of thumb here is if there is a file with a ”.abr” extension included in the download, then it must be loaded into your brushes panel before playing the Action.


• Ensure your brush opacity is set to 100% before playing the Action.


• Ensure you have disabled ‘Use pen pressure for opacity’ – see image below:

  



• Ensure you are not brushing onto your photo with a very low brush opacity.

The Oil Paint filter was introduced in Photoshop CS6. So firstly ensure you are running CS6 and above to use this effect.

Secondly, if the Oil Paint filter is greyed out for you under the ‘Filter > Stylize’ menu, then please check the following below:

• Make sure that your document is RGB. Oil Paint won’t work on color spaces other than RGB (e.g. CMYK, Lab, etc.)
• If you’re on Windows, make sure you’re running a 64-bit OS with the 64-bit version of Photoshop. OpenCL requires 64-bit.
• Make sure Use OpenCL is checked under Preferences > Performance > Advanced Settings.



• Make sure that your video card driver is up to date with the latest from the vendor website.
• Note: If your video card does not support OpenCL v1.1 or higher, you may need to purchase an upgraded video card that supports OpenCL v1.1 or higher to gain access to the Oil Paint filter.

This error will occur if you have not loaded the brushes into your brushes panel before playing the action.

If brushes are included in the download, then they must be loaded before playing the action. Instructions on loading the brushes into the brushes panel are demonstrated at the beginning of the items video tutorial.

Note that mainly my newer actions require brushes. If there is a ”.abr” file (eg. ‘example_brushes.abr’) included in the download, then it must be loaded into the brushes panel for the action to work.

This error can appear for a few reasons:

• You have not loaded the correct action version into your Photoshop, i.e. if you use CC2015, you may have loaded the CS6 version into Photoshop. Some of my actions require you to load a specific version into your Photoshop, others do not – so just double check the folder structure in your downloaded action.
• Your Photoshop preference files need to be reset.
• You have not created your ‘brush’ layer.

This error will appear if you have loaded the incorrect Action version into your version of Photoshop.

If you are using Photoshop CC, make sure you load the Action that’s found inside the “CC+” folder included in the download.

If you are using Photoshop CS6, make sure you load the Action that’s found inside the “CS6” folder included in the download.

If you are using Photoshop CC and there is no “CC+” folder included in the download, then use the Action in the previous Photoshop version i.e. CS6.

IMPORTANT: If you are using Photoshop CC 2015.5, you will need to update your Photoshop to at least CC 2015.5.1. The initial release of CC 2015.5 came with bugs that affected Action playback. The bugs were addressed in the Photoshop update on August 10, 2016.

You need to set your photo as the background before running the action. You cannot simply name your layer Background and lock it.

To set your photo as the background, select your photo layer and go to the menu Layer -> New -> Layer from Background. I demonstrate this at the beginning of each video tutorial for your reference.

Important: you only need to do this step if you open up your photo and your background layer isn’t called ‘Background’ and has the lock symbol. In nearly all cases you only need to perform this step if the photo you open is a .PNG file, or any file with transparency.

This is a bug with Photoshop 2020 and not an issue with the Action.

To fix this, please enable ‘Legacy Compositing’ in your performance settings by going to the menu ‘Edit > Preferences > Performance’.

After enabling ‘Legacy Compositing’, restart Photoshop and run the Action again.

All of my actions needs to be run in 8bits/Channel. In 16bit or 32bit, lots of Filter Gallery effects are not available. To change your photo to 8bit, go to the menu Image -> Mode -> 8bits/Channel.

You will also get this error if your PSD file is setup in CMYK color mode. Please ensure your document is in RGB color mode before playing the action.

Below are commons causes of the ‘Make’ error with solutions:

• Make sure you have brushed onto your ‘brush’ layer with 100% opacity. Some people have experienced this error because they have brushed very faintly onto their brush layer and Photoshop has then had a hard time gathering enough information from that layer to perform certain tasks.
• If the action requires brushes, make sure they are loaded into your brushes panel before running the action. Also check that your brush opacity is set to 100% before playing the action.
• Your preference files are corrupted and need to be reset. If you have checked the above points and are still getting the same error across multiple photos, its best to reset your preference files as their may be a bug built up in your Photoshop affecting action playback. This has proven to solve the ‘Make’ error in many cases. To reset the preferences, hold down Alt, Ctrl, and Shift keys (Mac: Command, Option, Shift) while starting up Photoshop. A dialog box will appear asking if you wish to delete the preferences/settings file. Delete it and then run the action again. If you are using Photoshop CC, you can also reset your preferences by going to the menu, ‘Edit > Preferences > General’ and selecting ‘Reset Preferences on Quit’.

If all else fails, please send me your PSD file setup so I can investigate.

Below are the solutions:

• You have not loaded the brushes required for the action to work. Just ensure you have loaded the brushes into the brushes panel before playing the action
• Your brush opacity is set too low. Make sure your brush opacity is set to 100% before playing the action.
• You have brushed very faintly onto the ‘brush’ layer before running the action. Make sure you brush onto the brush layer with 100% opacity.

Double check that you have spelt ‘brush’ with NO capital letters. So no capital B. This step is covered at the beginning of the video tutorial for each action. Also ensure you have actually created the ‘brush’ layer – some users have also been brushing directly onto their background layer instead of creating the ‘brush’ layer to brush onto, this will cause lots of errors in the action. This step is covered at the beginning of each video tutorial.

Unfortunately no. There is lots of functionality missing in PSE which makes the action work. The lowest version I test down to is Photoshop CS3. Please double check the minimum CS requirements listed on the item preview image page before downloading – as each action may differ.

If you receive this error, please update your Photoshop to at least version (CC 2015.5.1).

If you have purchased any of the items below before 10th August 2016, then you must re-download that item from your downloads area to obtain the updated Action. All the items below now included a specific “CC 2015.5+” folder (or greater) which you must now load into your Photoshop.

Sandstorm - Lines - Fury - ModernArt – Dispersion 2 – PolyEx - Synergy - Soft Focus – Architekt - Lively - Hyperfuze - Amplify - Flux - Konstruckt - Fire - Destrukt - ModernArt 4 – Fury 3 – Grid - Rise - Cosmic - Liquif 2 – Sparkle - Forge - Fearless - Moonstone - Color Splash – Shimmer - Liquify - Paradigm - Plasma - Watercolor & Pencil – Grunge 2 – Charcoal- Street - StarDust- Impasto - Strokes - Canvas - Abstract