By the Power of Photoshop…
Art, Entertainment, My Stuff May 7th, 2007I have been using Adobe Photoshop since ver 3.0 (1995) and I can proudly (and mostly non arguably) claim that I am very proficient at it ! I am not saying that I am the best or that I have mastered it all, but I am good. I have loved this software since ver. 3.0 and have hardly had any complaints with it - Some suggestions surely, but no complaints whatsoever !
Photoshop is the premier image manipulation software for graphic designers, photographers and many more professionals in the business. Some people do complain about the lack of vector support and text support, but those features are present in the current version of Photoshop - not too advanced though !
How I got into Photoshop, I myself do not remember. The earliest memory of me using Photoshop was when I was designing a poster for the IEEE society at my Engineering college - Thadomal (undergrad) called 360 Degrees. I think I had used ver. 3.0 for this. This is when I realised the power of Layers in Photoshop ! I became pretty good soon and started teaching the basics of Photoshop by example - This is the way I learned it and this is the way I was going to teach it !
I must say, I was pretty famous in my college and no one came near when it came to designing - I may sound arrogant right now, but I am not. Everyone has their talents and I had just found mine ! I learned Photoshop by following tutorials on the web. There are tons of tutorials out there - probably the most number of tutorials that I have seen on the web are the ones for Photoshop. I also did a website where I put up some of my own tutorials. This is quite an old site, but the tutorials are still good if you are a beginner ! Check it out if you are starting off as a beginner. Here is some of my Photoshop works…
That was the beginning - I have come a long way now. I have made Logos from scratch, CD covers, web interface, posters for different groups - IEEE, Bombay’s local Art of Living chapter etc. etc. and throughout, the only resource that I ever referred to was the tutorials on the web. My “portfolio” - though quite outdated can be found at my Photoshop site.
To really understand the power of Photoshop you need to see someone (proficient at Photoshop) at work ! Especially someone using the stamp tool - that is such an innovative tool ! Whoever thought of it is a pure genius ! One can correct photos and remove defects using this tool in Photoshop - I learned of it sometime when I was using Photoshop ver 5.0 (I think) and it opened up a whole new world of retouching ! Here is one of my best retouching works…I am proud of these !
The story behind this restoration :
“This photo of the Indian deity - Shiva, was ruined as water got into the frame and the glossy photo got stuck to the glass. I tried to remove the photo but to no avail…as you can see (on the left). I love this photo and I really needed to do something. So I scanned it (High res) and restored it using Adobe Photoshop. It took days before I finished it. It required every bit of patience that I had !! I love the final work…..in fact I surpassed myself with this work. Only a mouse was used…..no tablet etc. Love the work….hope you all see the amount of effort gone into this and appreciate that of nothing else.”
Photoshop is constantly being improved by Adobe, and I love that about it ! They have added RAW support which is good for images taken in the RAW format by digital cameras. There is some vector support and a lot of text support has also been added. I believe there is a free web version is the works - that should be amazing, with everything moving to Web 2.0 !! I am currently using Photoshop CS2 and can’t wait to upgrade to CS3 ! I love Photoshop - I do all the framing of my art in Photoshop; All the retouching of photos in Photoshop (before printing it) - Every graphic related action is done in Photoshop ! I have even stitched Panoramas in Photoshop ! There is no bounds to how you can use Photoshop - like everything else, I learned this out of curiosity and some interest - If I have roused any interest or curiosity in you then here is my advice to you - Go for it !! Start off - there will be stumbling blocks but you will overcome those I bet - like I did !!
Here is an image showing the evolution of the Photoshop toolbar - it shows you how Photoshop has evolved !
And some more articles about Photoshop
That’s my story…Here are some videos of people creating art from a scratch using Photoshop :
