Sep 25, 2001, 2:55pm

Back in the day, I didn't know Photoshop.

I loaded up an old CD Backup I made of some work I did between 1994 and 1997 (partially to find old stuff for my new Previous Versions page on Spiffle), and looking back, I was thinking about how much I sucked at Photoshop. I remember using V2 on a Mac back in the early 90s when I was taking a course in graphic design, but for the life of me, I never quite figured it out.

In 1995, I took a second stab at Photoshop, then Version 3.05 for Windows. Again, I failed miserably. I went back to using Corel Draw (a program that I did learn back in the late 1980s, and continued to improve on), Pagemaker for my graphical design layout, and well, no photo work. In 1995, it still didn't seem all that crucial. If I wanted to edit a photo, well I used programs like Ulead Photo Studio (or something to that effect) to produce images like the one you see to the right - No, she doesn't really look like that :-)

By 1996, it did become crucial that I use photographs and photo effects, but I was leery of Photoshop. So I tried to hire someone who was a Photoshop expert to work for my company, and produce the results I needed. That too, failed miserably.

So at the end of 1996, I said enough was enough, and I bought my student copy of Photoshop 4, (upgraded from a student copy of 3 I owned), bought "Photoshop for Dummies" and basically locked myself in my office for a week until I could "get it".

The image you see to the right is the result of me "getting" it. Everything in that image was done manually - no filters, no plugins, no tricks. That was key for me. Using plugins and filters is fine and dandy, but learning how those filters use Photoshop's built in manual methods for achieving this really gets you into the meat of the software.

Since then, I've become a bit of a Photoshop expert. No, I'm nowhere near the level of many true Photoshopian Elite, but I can hold my own. I design entire websites within Photoshop 6.01's environment, I use little-known features like channel effects, clipping paths, layer masks, adjustment layers, and I'm proud to say that, other than the base set of filters that come with the program, I have no 3rd party plugins or filters installed... don't need them.

Why did it take me so long to learn photoshop? It was more of a case of unlearning things. I was too used to how CorelDraw did things, for one. It also took me a long time to get the concept of "masks", which seems like second nature to me now.

I'm thinking about this today because I'm self-teaching myself the whole ins and outs of Flash Actionscripting, which is just as daunting to me today as Photoshop was back in the day. In fact, I was pretty depressed that I "just don't get it" with regards to actionscripting, but today, after pouring through the old backup CD, I have a new incentive to roll up the sleeves and get to work. Who knows... maybe in a year or two, actionscripting will be like "second nature" to me. :-)

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Mixelania

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Burundi and Beyond - NY Times
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NY Times
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Washington Monthly
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Canon EF 24-105 f4 L Lens
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Canon 5D
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Alzo Digital Lights
Some amazing florescent cold lights for product photography

Canon Xsi dSLR
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Canon 40D
Latest prosumer camera from Canon - a much better upgrade than the 30D

Fujitsu P1610
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28mm f1.8 Lens
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Foodsaver Advanced
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Canon 50mm 1.4
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Canon 10-22mm
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