Hi, All my custom actions are just gone, out of the blue. Using latest version of Photoshop CC 2019, no changes to computer or anything (Windows 10).
I opened up PS yesterday and oddly my workspace had reset to default. I didn't think much of it and just changed back to my custom workspace, no problem. But I just realized that all of my (very important) custom actions are gone. Nothing in folder at all (users-name-appdata-roaming-adobe-adobephotoshopcc2019-presets-actions). Any ideas?? TIA
Ok, update. I've learned 2 things, the first and worst, is that when you create an action in PS, it is evidently not permanently saved. It would be considered a temporary type of thing, able to disappear if preferences get reset or whacked. #2 is that for some reason my preferences got whacked. It sucks though to find out that actions are not saved until you manually go in and "save" them. I've been using them for years, never realizing that they needed to be saved. That's something that should happen by default. Are you listening Adobe? When you record an action, it should automatically get saved as an .atn file, or at least a dialogue box should open and ask if you want to save.
You can use Adobe feedback site to give them ideas for improving Photoshop. However, I don't think in this case they will think aromatic saving actions would be a good idea. Images you work on are not automatic saved with each change you make. Humans make mistakes and like to experiment with things and only save what they want to keep. Users also change action and images etc that are not their to change. Anything you do the you want to keep you should save your own copy of, Image, actions, script, brushes, presets, etc. How would Adobe know when they are correct or where you would want to save your assets. Currently Adobe save your work on actions in your Actions Palette Preferences. When you are stratified they are what you want you should save you own Action Sets. I would suggest not using any folder created by adobe. That way you will know where all your Photoshop add ons are and you will not loose them should Adobe or you decide to uninstall some version of Photoshop. I have been doing this for 20 years+. Without problems.
Ok, update. I've learned 2 things, the first and worst, is that when you create an action in PS, it is evidently not permanently saved.
Hi Shay
In addition, you need to save everything you have customized, including swatches, brushes, gradients, patterns, curves, custom shapes, patterns, and more, so they can be loaded in again.
To clarify, you are saving the action set, not the action. If you select an action instead of the set, Save will be grayed out. Save again every time you make a change to any action in the set that you want to keep. Otherwise if this happens again, your set will open to the last saved version, and that could be another disaster.
Same here. And none are present in the old version action folders. When Photoshop was updated, I was not even asked If I wanted my preferences carried over and all of my tool preferences are gone. It's like going through the entire initial install all over. In addition, instead of Adobe of addressing current bugs, all they did with this update was add a bunch of new AI features that are not at all thoroughly tested and seem to just nag the user with these splash type feature overviews interupting our workflow. It's just awful.
You do get asked when you install a new version. A popup comes up with two checkboxes - one to remove old versions, and one to migrate settings.
However, you only see this when you manually initiate the update. So you need to disable automatic updates in the CC app.
You save out (and reload) actions from the fly-out menu in the panel. Always do that. You can save them anywhere you want.
My recommendation is to not migrate settings. Preferences are prone to accumulating corruption because they are rewritten on every application exit, as opposed to read-only program files. Corrupt preferences contain the entire app configuration. The problem with corrupt preferences is that they are usually not recognized as such. They tend to just give unpredictable and weird behavior, and then people assume application bugs.
Thanks for the tips. In my 25+ years of using Photoshop, those have almost always been my practices. It just took that one idiotic manual update and decision to remove the old versions that screwed me up. I admit I wasn't thinking and in the end, it was totally my fault 😞
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