A question I seem to get quite often is how I edit my photos and if I use actions. I'm a bit torn on how I want to approach this. It's taken me quite some time to nail down the edits I like. As far as actions go, I have used Totally Rad Actions + Florabella Actions but as of now, I edit my photos using Camera Raw which means I do shoot raw instead of jpeg. I like the control I get from shooting in this format. After making my RAW edits, I play with curves and photo filters in CS5 to achieve the vintage tones I'm after. I also follow the best piece of advice I've ever gotten and that is...It's fun to play with actions but they can go horribly wrong. My advice is to use it sparingly and only to enhance an image artistically rather than masking something that is not so great. This is coming from someone who has spent a ton of money of actions. I'm not even going to lie. I was an action junkie. I could kick myself for spending money on said actions when I could of spent it on something more useful. I'm not saying that having an action set or 2 is not useful but don't get anymore than that. That's why I recommend TRL or Florabella. They have a wide range AND they're all tweak-able. Don't ever buy an action set that you cannot control. Again, something I'm admitting to doing. The actions where way to strong and just wonky, giving my images a very amateur "look who discovered actions" look.

So I'm sure those of you who asked are thinking this wasn't a very helpful answer. I'm sorry I couldn't produce a clean tutorial or a clear cut action on how I edit my own photos. One of these days I'll figure out how to 1. produce my own actions and/or 2. show screen shots of how I edit. But for now here are a few resources that you may find helpful.

Totally Rad Actions Florabella Actions I found this on Pinterest and it's very similar to how I edit my own photos. Pinterest is a great source on finding free actions.

More on photography including my favorite lenses and a few of my favorite scrapbooking techniques. xot.