Digital Cross-Processing

Often, I'm sad about having dull digital photos, but for various reasons, I don't have the time to go through and make a thoughtful edit.
I've found an Action for Photoshop that makes colorful photo edits in just seconds, by one click.

It's digital cross-processing.

Cross-processing is a technique that originated with film photography: during developing, the wrong chemicals were used, which causes colors to be switched, changed, or amplified. What's great about this Action is that it has many options. Within the one download are many ways to create cross-processed photos.

The four lower photos have been digitally cross-processed.
The top photo is the original.

Cross-processing is a popular technique among artistic film photographers, particularly lomographers. Cross-processed Lomo film yields ridiculous colors.

Photo by Teppo.

This Photoshop Action is very useful for making nice-looking photos very quickly, but it's even better when used as a tool for making a thoughtful edit. When the action is used on a duplicated layer, the layer can be played around with. Different blending modes and transparencies produce different effects, and typical photo-editing tricks can also be applied.