Name Action

This tutorial is for Photoshop CC 2021. Functions may not be the same in previous versions.

Because of the length of this particular tutorial, I have to break it up into pages, so don’t forget to check out all of the pages. They are all important to this tutorial.

This is one of those situations where people don’t want to make the hassle of tagging in photoshop. It takes forever to make tags for different names. However, I have discovered recently, by testing out every button possible, that you actually can do name “scripting” with photoshop.

The difference? You have to write the action yourself. Because of all of the different fonts and styles, you need to have everything saved for every tag. And yes, you can do that with Photoshop without having to flatten your tag! How about that!?

Now… it is a very tedious process right at first. It needs to be perfect. But you will only need to do this once! The rest of the tags will just need a simple push of the play button.

The first step. Make a tag. Since this is not a tagging tutorial, I am not going to show you how to make a tag. You can use one of the many tutorials I have on this website.

Select your name layer before saving your tag. It is still in font format, right? You didn’t rasterize it, did you? I hope not, because it is important to leave the font layers intact.

Please note: If, at any time during your tag creation, you have edited the font, you must retype it on a new layer. Photoshop remembers EVERYTHING about your layers. If you decide to change your mind about the font you have used, you must retype it on a new layer. This is important for your action to run the way it should. You can copy the layer style to your new text layer, but DO NOT change the font.

You have your tag? Great! Let’s continue!

First off, you MUST remember, when you have an action recording, you CANNOT hit the undo button. You cannot go through any of the history. Don’t. Just don’t. You will screw up the whole recording and you will need to start over. If you are an experienced action creator, I am sure you can get around this, but if you are a beginner, just don’t.

Next. If you miss a step. Start over. Don’t try to go back in and fix it. Again, if you are an experienced writer, just ignore me.

Got it? Good. Let’s continue.

You have your tag, right? Me too!

Here is mine:
(click on the image to see the copyrights)

As you can see, my tag is animated. It works for animations, too! But, if you would like to have your tags in PNG and JPG formats, too, you will need to write all three actions.

Continue to the next page to set up your tag for the process.