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One Click?! Do you need more than that to start a process? Well, sometimes it's a little more than that...

With over 360 iNovaFX Actions to sort through, a body could get lost. This page is here to help.

The image at the right is the result of more than just one mouse click. In fact, it took three. You can learn about these particular iFilmBorderFX Actions here.

But the majority of iNovaFX Photoshop Action Filters are both less fancy and more generally useful than the one that draws, letters, and surrounds your image with a pseudo-film frame.

The iNovaFX Actions correct color, undistort images, create special effects, solve film-negative-to-digital-positive operations, get rid of long exposure noise, extend dynamic range, convert images to the look of film and do a bunch of things you never realized you needed until you start playing with them.

But with so many thing to sort through a fresh stab at it might help.

iNovaFX Action FAQs:

Where the heck are they?
Look in your eBook CD. See that folder marked "iNovaFX_ Actions" or "Actions XXX" They're in there.

The rest of the CD is full of the ReadMe files, the eBook folder, Practice/Demo images, Model Release forms, and programs in both Mac (the Amber folders) and Windows (the Blue folders) formats.

These include Adobe Acrobat® (now Adobe Reader) for viewing the eBook, a full version of Photoshop Tryout, PhotoGenetics Demo, Genuine Fractals' Print Pro Demo, and the complete public domain version of Panorama Tools. ( Things have changed since 2001)

We've even included new ReadMe files that guide you through the new iFilmBorder.atn Actions and some new additions.

Yeah, I saw all that. But in that iNovaFX folder there are only 50-some-odd items, that's hardly 360+ Actions. Where are the other 88%?

What you see aren't the Actions themselves, but packages full of Actions.

Each package has more than one. Some have over a dozen.

Only three folders within this folder will need to be opened further. The iCF950/775 folder, the iCF99x folder and the iNovaFX5.5 folder.

Inside each of these are more iNovaFX Action packages.

One of the easiest ways to load these packages is to click on them. Photoshop will start up with that Action package already installed in its Actions Palette. Nothing could be easier.

Of course you can load them into Photoshop 5.0, 5.5, 6.0 or 7.0 by using the Load function in the Actions Palette drop-down menu and we have a page on this site to explain all that.

What's in the packages?
Each package performs a different sort of function.

• The iCF950/775 and iCF99x folders hold five packages each that correct color mistakes (Color Fix).
  
• The PS5-compatible Actions are now within the iNovaFX5.5 folder. All of the original series of iNovaFX Actions are in there, for immediate use with your previous version of Photoshop.
  
• Purple-iconed filter packages are for the 5-megapixel world.

What's with the ".atn" at the end of each package name?
That's for the Windows version only. The suffix identifies it as a Photoshop AcTioN to the Windows operating system but is ignored by the Macintosh operating system. So there.

What do they do?
Package by package, this is what they do:

• The i5KSetPS6.atn package contains several new ideas that only appear in eBook Version 4.0 and later. These include:
     
  • Five iShadowLift... Actions that concentrate on brightening the dark parts of a shot while leaving the highlights alone. Why so many? Some work better with certain shots. One is highly tuneable, meaning you get to set it where you want.
       
  • Two iBC5KWC68 Actions recompute full-frame images that were shot with the delicious WC-E68 wide angle converter. This lens is killer (in a good way), but it does have some slight residual barrel distortion. So these Actions turn the shots into perfectly linear superwideangle images. Here's some further reference.
       
  • iAspectLarger blows full frame 3:2 images up to 3:4 aspect by adding some edge white. That's all. Some processes are looking for a 3:4 image. The iBC series, for instance, and this makes the 3:2's work with those Actions.
       
  • iCC5K... Actions fix the most common color errors people make: Shooting with incandescent white balance in sunlight or the inverse, shooting with "Fine" (Sunny) white balance set when indoors. These do a pretty good job of fixing the errors and making the image decent.
       
• The iAerialShotCor.atn filter package turns shots made from an airplane into perfect-looking image. Haze goes away! Tunable. A jaw-dropper!
     
• iBC950.atn and iBC990.atn packages have Actions that eliminate barrel distortion from shots made wide angle or with converter optics. There are even ones that straighten out the fisheye!
     
• iBC+iCrab990.atn contains extra Actions that do two things at once. They eliminate barrel distortion and Chromatic Aberration (CrAb) all at once. Handy if you are preparing shots for stitched panoramics.
     
• iBWFilmFX.atn has Actions that convert the shot into black and white, but not in a simple way, these make the shot look like it was made with B&W film!
     
• iCFWarmer/Cooler.atn are symmetrical warming and cooling Actions. Need to put just a smidgen of warmth into a shot? Try this. Hit it three times and you might have gone too far, so hit the cooler filter to back up exactly one step. Ahh, that's got it.
     
• iColorDeNoise.atn contains Actions that clean up color noise in your shots. Read all about it here.
     
• iColorNegProcess.atn contains a suite of Actions to get you from shooting a film negative to producing a decent-looking positive image. See the eBook for the things a filter can't do for you in this complex process.
     
• iComplexArtFX.atn holds Actions that create very complex artistic conversions of your digital photographs. You can almost smell the oil paint...
     
• iCRV/XRedEye.atn has special Actions to re-vector colors into better looking results. Rescue faded transparencies, make Sodium-Vapor street lamp shots look decent, and while you are at it, fix any red-eye in people shots.
     
• iCrAb950/990.atn package has Actions that eliminate Chromatic Aberration that show up in the corners of some shots. A new version is included for the 990 that is even more effective.
     
• iDeNoise/DeJPEG.atn has Actions that strongly eliminate color noise from shots. Check it out here. Then the iDeJPEG Actions do a very good job of making Basic compressed images look more like Normal compressed shots. A Real Big Deal for saving CF card space!
     
• iDimRoom5.atn is for Photoshop 5.0 and 5.5 only. A parallel iDimRoom6.atn version is here, too. What it does is a bunch of special effects no darkroom could ever achieve. Hence "dim room." These are uniquely photographic effects, not like the art effects in the iComplexArt series.
     
• iDynamicRangers.atn are a group of operations that turn a three-exposure shot into an image with greater dynamic range than you can get on film! A Web Page explains it further.
     
• iGlareFlare.atn has Actions that tweak your sparkle!
     
• iHandyChanges.atn has some utilities for working a bit easier in Photoshop.
     
• iFilmBorders.atn is the package of film border effects making roll film, 4x5 sheet film and sprocketed 35mm film borders on your shots. Like the shot up at the top of this page. Here's more about it.
     
• iStampBorders.atn is the package of border generating Actions that turns your shot into a perforated STAMP! Here's some reference on that.
     
• iFlawFix.atn gets rid of night-shot (looonnngg exposure) images. It gets its name from the Flaw Frame you shoot to reference chip noise.
     
• iPS- series packages provide handy starting places for many of the Photoshop Actions and filter plug-ins that are found under the Actions menu bar item. The name on each package refers to the Filter Series it deals with.
     
• iSORecover.atn contains iNovaFX Actions that boost ISO allowing you to shoot at ISO speeds of 800, 1600 or more with your digital Nikon. Recent additions extend the range of the PS 6.0 version of this idea. You can try one free and get the complete set with the eBook.
     
• iPolarizeSkyPS6.atn contains iNovaFX Actions that let you add the effect of a polarizing filter to your shots that contain blue skies. Seven (!) variations give you lots of control. Here's added reference on the idea.
     
• iFX.atn package contains the iRetNar iNovaFX Actions that emulate some of the useful features of the Retinex image processing software that was developed by NASA. They can recover useful images from some surprisingly bad shots. They can also make images look WAY over processed. These are fun to play with and may even rescue images you thought were lost.
     
  • Also in this package are the iOldTymie Actions that emulate images from the dawn of photography.
       
  • And then, there are the iMprove... Actions. The Panacea filter. The filter that... ...well, darn if it doesn't seem to improve just about everything it touches! We think Nikon ought to have a special button for this on every camera. It wouldn't hurt.
       
• iFrameAveragePS6.atn package contains iNovaFX Actions which take 3, 4, 5 or 6 images and blend them together in unique ways for the most grain-free shots you've ever seen! The shots need to be made "in-register," meaning tripod and a remote release that can't shake the camera.
     
• iMulti-16VGA includes two Actions that let you open 16 images of VGA size and lay them out in a single page of comic-strip-like shots. One for verticals, one for horizontal originals.
     
• iSharpPS6.atn contains iNovaFX Actions that take images that were shot with low- or no- image sharpening and build-back the missing edge details. Sometimes they can do it better than the camera's own image sharpening settings. Fewer contour artifacts!
     
• iFourPrint.atn contains iNovaFX Actions that let you open four full-size images and arrange them on a letter-size page for print out. A-4 and US letter pages both work! Versions for 2 and 3 megapixel shots in both vertical and horizontal formats are included.
     
• The iFX-PS5 folder contains four packages that substitute for the iColorDeNoise, iDimRoom, iPSStylize and iSORecover packages. About 90% of the original iNovaFX Actions work just fine with the newer Photoshop 6.0, but these need to be used in their original form with PS5x.
  
  Also in this folder you will see all the original PS5+-compliant iNovaFX Actions that load into Photoshop 5.0 and 5.5.
     
• The iCF950 and iCF990 folders hold the color repair Actions fix shots accidentally made with the wrong white balance. A page here gives a better idea of how they work.
  

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New Actions are added all the time. Not a month has gone by without new things joining the group.

Upcoming Actions will continue to find new ways of enhancing, improving or simply reinventing your digital images.

Learn more about the iNovaFX Actions here and use them to increase the health of your images.

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