Atomic Cupcake Gold Action
for Photoshop 7.0, Photoshop CS, or Photoshop CS2

Part I -- Installation

1. Copy the "Atomic Cupcake Gold.atn" file to the location of your choice.

2. Open Photoshop. Open the Actions palette (from the "windows" menu section).

3. Click on the triangle button in the top corner of the Actions pallette and click "load actions" Open the file from the location you chose in step 1.



Part II -- Using the Action

1. Open the image you would like to turn into gold. This can be a solid background.

2. Select an area with the marquee tool. It can be any shape you like (see the shapes section below for ideas.) 

3. Click on the name of the action in the Actions palette "AC - gold"

4. Press play. (The triangle button at the bottom.)


The gold version will be created in a new document -- leaving your original paper or photo in it's original condition. 




Part III -- Ideas for Shapes

So what shapes can you makes? Letters, numbers, squares, circles, frames, photo corners, hearts, stars, and anything you can dream up... Read on.

1. The obvious squares and rectangles:
	a. Use the marquee tool  on a background image.
	b. Press play on the action.

2. Circles and ellipses:
	b. Click and hold on the marquee tool to bring up "elliptical marquee tool".
	c. Select a circle on a background image.
	d. Press play on the action.

3. Letters and text:
	a. Type the words you want to ink on a new layer above a background image.
	b. Hold the control button and click on the text layer in the layers pallette. This selects the shape of the text.
	c. Press play on the action.

4. Other shapes: You can use the "control-click" method from  to copy any shape.
	a. Use photoshop's "custom shape tool" to make a shape on a layer above a background image.
	b. Right click on the layer's name in the layers pallette and choose rasterize.
	c. Hold the control button and click on the shape's layer in the layers pallette. This selects the shape of the shape.
	d. Press play on the action. 

5. Freehand shapes:
	a. Use the lasso tool on a background image.
	b. Press play on the action.

Try layering together multiple gold pieces for more complex embellishments.