If you were wondering, the little quote up there means “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” It’s the Italian title of the film, which was released a year before it came out in the US. I would have just put the English quote up there, but my internal aversion to cliched quotes and sayings kicked in and took over. I do realize that now instead of being cliche, I’m just a nerd, and I’m ok with that. Anyways, on to the topic!
I was talking with a friend earlier today about Photoshop and how it’s used. The good and the bad. We had a good little chat by text on the issue. It brought to memory all my old Photoshop wrecks from my early teen years, from the flowers on acid stage to my duochrome obsession. Not to mention the stormy cloud background on everything days.
Let me explain. Back before I held a camera to do anything else but take cheesy Myspace photos, I was a Photoshop stud. That’s right. If you were looking for a master, it was me. Joking aside, I did think I was a pretty good Photoshopper back in the day. Many-a-time would you see the “Photoshoppin’” status on my Myspace or on my many Instant Messenger away messages. And what did I create during those awkward teenage years? Take a look for yourself!
Backgrounds were my specialty, I’d have to say. I’d create weird distorted cloud-things, stick a color overlay on them, maybe stick a picture or two inside the clouds for special meaning, and call it a day! Take this sad compilation below, for example.
I would take a misshapen cloud-bubble-background-thing that I created and just overlay color after different color to see what would happen. You are only seeing 4 out of 10 in the series. Be glad I didn’t force you into the whole 10.
I also did some very…odd edits of things. As you can see:
So, anyways, back to the topic at hand, I’ve obviously changed my philosophy on Photoshop. When I first started picking up photography, my approach to Photoshop was the same as it had been in the above photos: wacked out craziness that I thought was “cool.” It’s been a very gradual and very consistent decrease in my usage of some of Photoshop’s features. I now only consistently use 3 tools. Curves, Hue/Saturation, and Smart Sharpen. I use a 4th occasionally, vignetting. I do have to stick a disclaimer out here, though. I do extensive tweaking with my raw files before I ever bring them into Photoshop. My raw edits normally fix contrast, exposure, sharpness, and white balance issues.
That aside, my editing process has been cut down extensively. I let the camera do more of the talking than my software. I think the most important change in my editing process was realizing that the photo was the art, not what I did to that photo afterwards. So now I ask myself when I’m editing, “Is what I’m doing enhancing my photo, or just distracting from it?” I think that’s an important question that all Photoshoppers should ask themselves while in the digital darkroom. Don’t let your eager fingers detract from the simplicity, the elegance, or the natural beauty of your photos. Nothing’s wrong with making a cool picture look cooler, but know that it’s very easy to go from “cool” to “over the top.” Shock value only goes so far.
So, this very long post gave me the idea to start doing a weekly “Good Photoshop vs. Bad Photoshop” segment to show how to do Photoshop right and how to NOT do Photoshop. Maybe it’ll stick, maybe not. We’ll see. In the meantime, have a gander at some more of my old pre-photography days. The ones I’m actually a tad bit proud of are first, and the laughs are below them. Looking at all of these makes me very glad for the passing of time. (By the way, “hallowed” was a band I was “in.” I was the only member. Wow, this is a very embarrassing post. I’ll have to keep these to a minimum.)
Ones I’m somewhat proud of
Laughs
