Evaluating Photoshop So Far - Oliver and Katherine

1.            What have you learnt about the way Photoshop works?

Works in layers rather than whole image – you need to separate an overall image into component parts.

Allows you to add unrelated images together and resize / merge etc to create new image.

You can add filters / adjust colours / remove and add elements and therefore manipulate the image and the audience.

You can manipulate the image into an entirely new one.

2.            What have you found most difficult about working with Photoshop?

Having to work on lots of different layers – it can get confusing, especially when  adding long text, each word on different layer

Have to keep clicking on ‘tick’ at top of screen before moving to new tool

Working out functions of tools and finding the ones that are hidden beneath  other tools.

3.            Which of the tools have you found most useful?

Magic wand tool makes image extraction easy if you have a plain background - magnetic lassoo more time consuming but probably the best result

Blur tool useful tool useful to blend images and make them seem more 3D. Smudge tool is an exaggerated versio of this and blends inages well.

Eraser helps remove sections missed in extraction and to merge two different layers

Pointer tool helps move and resize.

Clone stamp tool helps remove various flaws in a subtle way

4.                 What are the main limitations of working with Photoshop?

Only has a certain number of filters, backgrounds, effects etc – these may not always be exactly what you want.

Can be time-consuming searching through all the tools and possibilities.

Can’t correct bad photos e.g. by correcting lighting, composition etc.

5.                 Manovitch argues that software such as Photoshop encourages a focus on a new kind of creativity, “creativity through selection”. How creative does working with Photoshop allow you to be?

Can be limiting in some ways – you do start thinking about what Photoshop can do rather than what you want to do.

You can still be really creative within these boundaries.

Almost all creativity is really about selection – as soon as you pick a medium to work in, you are being creative within constraints.