Atomic Cupcake Smooth Ink Action
for Photoshop 7.0, Photoshop CS, or Photoshop CS2

Part I -- Installation

1. Copy the "AC - Smooth Inked Edges.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 tear. This can be a background, paper, a photo, etc.

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

3. Choose a foreground color to pick the color you'd like the ink to be.

4. Click on the name of the action in the Actions palette "Atomic_cupcake_smoothink"

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


The inked 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 ink? Letters, numbers, squares, circles, tags, hearts, stars, and anything you can dream up... Read on.

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

3. Letters and text:
	a. Type the words you want to ink on a new layer above your image.
	b. Hold the control button and click on the text layer in the layers pallette. This selects the shape of the text.
	c. Switch back to your image layer. Now you have your paper selected but with the shape of the text!
	d. 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 your image.
	b. Hold the control button and click on the shape's layer in the layers pallette. This selects the shape of the shape.
	c. Switch back to your image layer. Now you have your paper selected but with the shape's shape!
	d. Press play on the action. 

5. Inking paper to match the shape of tags and other digital scrapbooking downloads you may be using in your project: 
	a. Place the item on a layer above your image. 
	b. Hold the control button and click on the items's layer in the layers pallette. This selects the shape of the item.
	c. Switch back to your image layer. Now you have your paper selected but with the item's shape!
	d. Press play on the action. 

6. Freehand shapes:
	a. Use the lasso tool.
	b. Press play on the action.