The Computer Revolution/Computer Graphics/Adobe Photoshop

Photoshop

Whenever there is a mention of photo-editing or photo-retouching or photographs in general, the software that has dominated the market is Adobe Photoshop. Every photographer that I have met who uses digital photography or does photo-editing uses photoshop for skin tones, highlighting, smoothing, etc. But using pictures in artistic ways and creating expressionist or abstract art is an intriguing field of computer graphic designing.

Art is relative, what may be art to me may not be considered art by you. With a whole collection of art quotes I will use predominately one quote to justify the contents of this article. "You cannot master art without the knowledge of its technique."

Adobe Photoshop has proved to be a vital tool for me. Rather than just be for editing pictures for fun with friends or for an assignments, it proves to be very easy and efficient when it comes to graphics editing. I am currently using Adobe Photoshop 7 and the wide variety of tools enhances the whole experience. There are tools such as the clone stamp, the burn or dodge tool, paint brush, and many others. There is the optic zoom tool which allows to you to view pictures at 1600%. This basically allows you to perfect every pixel to what you want it to look like. The Clone stamp allows you to copy how every much of another graphic you want in just one easy click and brush stroke. The burn or dodge tool is used to darken a image depending on the intensity you choose. If you hold the Alt key while doing so it does the exact opposite. So if your placing one of your friends head on Arnold Schwarzenegger's body, this makes it easier for you to match the different skin tones. It also allows for you to add text so you can title each picture with some cool fonts and funky colors.

The newest version of Photoshop is Photoshop CS5. It does all the things that previous versions have done but obviously has new features. It is widely used by professional photographers as well as a tool for correcting, manipulating and enhancing photos. One of the greatest things about Photoshop is that you can create actions, which allow the user to record the different tasks performed for that photograph. For example, if you regularly do 10 steps to the majority of your photographs to enhance them, Photoshop allows you to press the record button and continue with those 10 steps and then save that action. Now that it is saved all you have to do is press play in the actions box for the next photograph you want to same 10 steps to take place in. This is one of many features that photographers use in this amazing and multifaceted software.

• Uses of Photoshop

The uses of Photoshop are plentiful, they vary from modifying photos by simple touch ups such as red eye and clarifying an image. Along with major adjustments such as color saturation, filters and image simulation or design. This allow anyone from a professional artist to a free lance photographer to import and edit any photos. It also allows image manipulation to create the picture you wanted but were unable to get due to weather or the tip of your finger in the photograph.

• Editing

There are many ways to edit a photograph through the use of Photoshop. It can be a fine detail such increasing the contrast of the photo to allow it to be viewed better. Or complete manipulation of the entire photo. This could take shape and form in discarding the background of a photo and creating your own by substituting another image. However Photoshop is simply not only for photos. The software allows the user to design and manipulate multi-layered pages as well.

• Manipulation

When approaching manipulation of a photograph it can a daunting experience. Considering that you maybe working on a photograph that has sentimental meaning or possible took you a long time to capture that right shot. Photoshop offers a vast number of ways to properly manipulate your photograph, from blurring the surroundings to concentrate the eye on the center of the image. Or even increasing the proportions of a photo to give it a surreal atmosphere.

• Tools

Photoshop has about every tool you could possibly need for editing and manipulating you a photo. The tools range from animations, spot healing, red eye tool, smart sharpen and many others. For instance the spot healing tool allows the editor to completely substitute an image out and replace it with background. An example could be a persons hand partially included in a family photo, you could simple use the spot healing tool and completely edit the hand out resulting in the desired photo.