How to Use the AI Actions Panel in Photoshop

How to Use the AI Actions Panel in Photoshop

Actions have worked essentially the same way for over a decade: record a sequence of steps, save it, replay it on another file. Useful for repetitive work, and entirely dependent on you having recorded the right thing in advance.

The rebuilt Actions panel changes the premise. You describe what you want in plain language, and Photoshop assembles the edit — choosing from a large library of actions built on its own core tools. What makes it genuinely interesting is not the AI suggestion part. It is that the result is an ordinary, fully editable layer stack rather than a flattened effect.

A note on versions: this was recorded while the new Actions panel was available only in the Photoshop beta. It may have reached the main release by now, and the suggestions may differ. How it works is unchanged.

Opening the Panel

1. Make sure Photoshop is up to date

   Check Creative Cloud for the latest version.

2. Go to Window, then Actions

   Or press Alt + F9 on Windows, Option + F9 on Mac.

3. Dock it next to your Layers panel

   Worth doing deliberately — you will be watching the Layers panel constantly to see what each action actually built.

Describing What You Want

The panel opens with a search field and a set of suggestions. The suggestions are generated from your actual image, so a portrait against a plain background produces different offers than a landscape would.

You can also simply type what you want. The library covers a wide range of edits, and the matching is loose enough that plain descriptions work — “make the subject pop”, “generate a custom background”, “glowing highlights brush”.

Some actions ask for input. Choosing to generate a background, for instance, prompts you for a description — type “city” and it uses Generative Fill to place your subject in one, offering several variations to pick between.

The Part That Actually Matters

Run an action, then look at your Layers panel. This is where the design decision behind the whole feature shows.

The background generation does not flatten anything. It separates your subject, creates the new environment behind them, and leaves both as normal layers. The subject is still masked, still adjustable, still yours.

A worked example

The glowing highlights action is a good illustration. Run it and you can paint glowing highlights onto your subject — an effect with no single tool behind it. Open up what it built and the construction is entirely conventional:

A stamped-visible composite layer. A Camera Raw Smart Filter on top of it, boosting whites and highlights. A selection of the subject converted into a layer mask. A brush you paint with to reveal the brightened version through that mask.

Every piece is a standard Photoshop technique. Nothing is hidden, nothing is proprietary, nothing is locked.

Which means you can change all of it

Double-click the Camera Raw filter and the panel opens with the exact settings the action used — adjust the highlight boost, or take it somewhere else entirely. Paint on the layer mask to change where the effect appears. Toggle any layer off to see its contribution. Delete the parts you do not want and keep the rest.

This is the difference between a filter and a starting point. A filter gives you a result; this gives you the working file you would have built yourself, without the twenty minutes of building.

Worth Trying

Generate a custom background. Handles the subject separation and the environment in one step, and leaves both editable. Faster than doing it manually and the result is a real composite rather than a flattened image.

Make the subject pop. A request most retouchers hear constantly and nobody can define. The action interprets it — typically separating the subject and adding an outer glow — and because you can see exactly what it did, you can push it further or dial it back.

Glowing highlights brush. Worth running once purely to inspect the construction. It is a genuinely useful demonstration of building a paintable effect from a smart filter and a mask.

Using It Well

Read what it built

The habit worth forming is opening every stack an action creates rather than accepting the result. These are effectively worked examples from people who know Photoshop well, and reverse-engineering a few teaches you techniques you can then use deliberately. The glowing highlights construction is reusable knowledge, not just a button.

Treat results as drafts

Actions are built to work across many different images, which means they are general rather than tuned to yours. Expect to adjust the mask, change the amount, or remove one layer of the stack. That is the intended workflow, not a shortcoming.

Watch for generative resolution

Any action using Generative Fill inherits its resolution cap, so a generated background on a large file can come back softer than your subject. Check at 100% before committing.

Where It Fits

Traditional recorded actions are not going away, and they are still the right answer for genuinely repetitive work — a resize and export you run on four hundred files does not need AI.

What this replaces is the fumbling in between: knowing roughly what you want an image to do but not immediately knowing which combination of adjustment layers, blend modes and masks gets there. Describing it and inspecting the result is often faster than reasoning it out, and you end up with a file you can still work on.

That last point is what makes it worth adopting. Plenty of AI features hand you an outcome and no way in. This one hands you the layers.

Quick Reference: Keys, Menus and Settings

• Open itWindow > Actions; dock it next to Layers
• Find an actionType in the search box (city, vintage, brighten, blur, focus) or use Suggested; the reload icon refreshes suggestions for the image
• PreviewHover the eye icon beside an action
• Actions from the videoGenerate custom background (“city”), Glowing highlights brush, Make subject pop, Auto adjust levels, Vintage paper texture overlay, Light leak overlay, Portrait brighter, Strong blur background, Retro film look overlay
• “Needs a visible layer”Make a new layer, or stamp everything with Shift + Option/Alt + Cmd/Ctrl + E and convert it to a Smart Object
• See what it didOpen the Layers panel: real layers, masks, smart filters and blend modes you can change
• Your old actionsThe Yours tab

Recorded in Photoshop Beta; generative actions (backgrounds, overlays) spend credits.