Photoshop action to automatically duplicate item before editing
Using Photoshop I often mistakenly saved my original photo/document after working on it. Alas! I could never change my mind or do something different to the original. I designated a function key to perform an easy action to 1-copy the original, 2 open a new window, and 3- paste into the new window. I only work on this copy. My original is never touched beyond this.

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Anna Johnson commented
I've done an action or two to do the same thing in my case. Once upon a time I had one action to save the document and duplicate it as a fresh copy. I have another action I use a lot in photoshop that duplicates the object (embellishment or paper, etc) into a document labeled Untitled-1 (which is unsaved prior to this) and then closing each of the embellishments or papers after I load it full of the pack i am using, I then save the "Untitled-1" document after separating things into layer folders. I do find that I do make a number of actions when doing photoshop, like I made an action to duplicate my paper and then mirror it perfectly if I am doing a 12x24 double layout (which works in most cases except when there is text involved). Maybe one day I can share my actions.