Shopping at MCP Actions is easy. Just add your item to the cart by selecting the quantity you desire. Then when you have the workshops and/or actions you want to purchase in the cart, click, "Proceed to Checkout." Log in or create a new account. Actions ordered and accounts created on my old site, prior to December 17, 2009, are no longer valid, so please create a new account.

At step 2 of the payment process, please read carefully and select the appropriate option. You have the choice of using a credit card or paypal for products and services that have a charge. If you are only downloading FREE products, you need to choose the option that says, "Use this option if your cart totals $0.00."

Once you complete payment via "free option," "paypal," or "credit card," you will get to this screen. There are links to videos (which are also located on my site in the FAQ area - drop down) and to your downloads. Click on "My Downloadable Products" to get to your actions and workshop information downloads.

Click on the word "Download" next to the desired product.

From here your product will download. Just use unzip software to extract the files. There will be a Terms of Use, your action(s) (which ends in .atn), and a PDF with instructions. Remember that most sets have a video you can watch as well by coming back to my site.

For all products purchased after December 17, 2009, you will get a confirmation email. You can click on that email's "Download" links to download. You get 5 lifetime downloads per item, for your one license.

If you are on the site, another option for finding your downloads, is to log in to your account. Go to "My Account." Enter your email and password. Then on the left side go to "My Downloadable Products."

Once there you will see all of your current and past purchases (12/19/09 and on). You can click on whichever product you wish to download.

To start with, make sure you know where downloads go on your machine. Sometimes they download and you may not realize it. If you get a spinning wheel or download that will not end, check and make sure your firewall is not blocking the file. Sometimes firewalls will either block a download or even cause it to be corrupted. If this may be the case, temporarily turn off your firewall to download the products.

If you get your download but get errors when you upzip it, you may not have allowed it to download completely. Please re-try and give it more time. Since the files are zipped on a mac, they create two separate folders when PC users view them. You need to discard the one that starts with ._ if you are on a PC as these will appear empty to you. Look in the folder with just the name.

When unzipping on a PC, make sure you "open" rather than "save" when unzipping the files. Customers who had trouble said this was the fix for them.

If these options do not work, try another web browser, such as Firefox, IE, Safari, Flock, Opera, etc. As a last case scenario, if you own a 2nd computer, try using it.

If you still cannot get paid items to download or unzip correctly after multiple tries, I can manually send them to you. Please contact me within 3 days of purchase. I cannot offer this service for free/try me actions.

Under FAQ on my site you will see a link to videos that will teach you how to install and use Photoshop actions. There are videos on using installing and using actions, using layer masks, saving your actions, and much more. Most MCP action sets also have a video teaching how to use that specific set. You may watch these videos prior to or after your purchase.

If you still cannot get your actions to play, make sure you have expanded the set by clicking on the arrow next to the folder of the set in the actions palette. Then you will see each action inside the set listed. Select one of these and click play.

First, make sure you have the correct action installed for your Photoshop version. This is the number one cause of errors.

At this time, many features of Photoshop are only available in 8-bit mode. If you shoot raw and you use LR or ACR, you may be exporting as 16-bit/32-bit files. You will need to convert to 8-bit if the action steps are unable to work in 16-bit/32-bit. In the top toolbar, go under IMAGE – MODE – and check off 8-bit.

If you are in the right mode, and get an error such as “The object layer background is not currently available” it may mean you have renamed your background layer. If the action calls upon the background, it cannot work without one. You will want to create a merged layer (or flattened layer) of your work up to this point, and then name it “Background” so that you can use the action.

You need to finish running the action. When it asks you to paint on the photo with the mask selected, it explains to click play to resume the action. The message is not a joke. If you do not do this step, you cannot save as a jpg. So, if you are using this action and run into this problem, make sure to finish running it. It will sharpen your photo and then convert back to RGB so you can save it.

Go under IMAGE - MODE - RGB. Then you can save your photo to a jpg.

There are a number of common mistakes people make when using layer masks. Here are some things to check so that you may use them properly.

• Make sure that there is a box around your layer mask and that you have the appropriate layer selected.
• Make sure the thumbnail of the photo is NOT selected instead of the solid box.
• Make sure your brush opacity and flow is not at 0%. You may vary the % based on the outcome desired. For example for Touch of Light and Darkness I use a brush set at opacity of 30%. For the Eye Doctor I set the brush at 100% and then adjust the opacity of the actual layers.
• Make sure your blending mode of the brush is set to NORMAL.
• If the mask is black, it is hiding a change. To reveal the change, paint with white (set as the foreground color).
• If the mask is white, the adjustments are shown. If you want to selectively hide the adjustment, paint with black set as your foreground color.
• Click “d” on your keyboard to reset the swatches, and “x” to swap the white and black.
• If you still see no change from painting on a mask, make sure you do not have a pixel layer (a layer that looks like the background layer) above the layer you are masking on. It will cover it up and your effects will not be seen. Layer order is important. You can only have transparent or adjustment layers stacked on top of the layer you are on or your results may be hidden.

Start my reading the FAQ on using layer masks. The most common mistake on this layer is not having the actual mask selected (it should have a thin white frame around the mask before you begin painting. Make sure the brush (not the layer) opacity is at 100% and that the brush blend mode is set to normal. Lastly make sure there are no pixel layers in the layers palette above the Eye Doctor layers or this will be "covered" and changes will not be seen.

When using this action, you need good light in the eyes to start with. If your eyes are just a deep hole with no light, the “Eye Doctor” has nothing to enhance.

There are two important keys to using the transform handles when resizing. If you wish to maintain proportions, you need to hold down the Shift Key the entire time as you drag the handles. And you need to make sure you drag one of the 4 corner points to resize. If you do not hold the Shift Key down completely or if you drag from one of the 4 middle points instead of corners, your photo will be distorted. Once you resize, you need to accept the change by clicking on the check mark in the top toolbar.

Some actions are designed to run straight through, while others may have a few spots where they need feedback.

But if your actions are stopping at every single adjustment and popping stuff up so that you have to keep hitting ok, you have a slight glitch. This may happen as a result of a Photoshop setting or you may have accidentally turned this on for a particular set of actions. Here is how you can fix this annoying problem.

Your best bet is to reload the actions. You may have accidentally recorded or deleted a step.

You will need to contact the company you purchased from. Since I do not own their actions, I cannot help troubleshoot them. If you buy from a reputible company, they should be able to help you