New to Photoshop? Or have you downloaded an action and have no idea where to begin? In this quick tutorial I’ll show you easy it is to save, load and run an action. Note: an action will always have the file extension of .atn. Let’s get to it.

First, you need an action to download. Here are a few free web actions I made. Sweet, simple, and to the point. Enjoy!
Free Web Resize Actions

After you’ve downloaded the action, it needs to be loaded into Photoshop. The .atn file needs to be put in your “Program Files/Adobe/CS3 (or your version)/presets/actions/” folder.

Now switch back to Photoshop, and go to the actions palette. (If your actions palette is not visible, go to windows-and make sure actions are checked). Click on the down arrow in the upper right corner of the palette. Locate the .atn file you want load and click. This will load the action into your palette. Once loaded, find it in the actions palette, and assuming you have a file open, press play. That’s it.

Hint: If you need to go back a step, you can undo in the History palette.