Adjustment Layers and Lost Toilets


WindowAndYNo2, originally uploaded by carolWorldLeader.

Yesterday, I went to a Photoshop workshop put on by my local chapter of the Shutterbug club. (Austin Shutterbugs, the group that’s so friendly, it invades!) The workshop was actually informative. The lady who teaches it does a really good job of keeping it interesting, keeping our attention, and presenting enough material. The topics covered were adjustment layers, masks, and a few other intermediate to advanced topics.

It’s an interesting thing about Photoshop. Those who know how to use it tend to use it in their own way. For example, some folks use levels all the time (our instructor did) while others use curves (I do.) You can get the same result with curves as you can with levels, for example, but it really boils down to personal preference and style. Everybody has a slightly different workflow and there are many ways to “skin a cat” (as it were) in Photoshop.

I had very little else that I had to do this weekend (well, little that I did not blow off) and so I ran around the house doing Uta Barth-like images: abstract minimal plain white corners, with the lensbaby. This is one from the lot.

As an aside, this is actually taken in my bathroom. I find that rather odd because, well, you could say many things about it but it doesn’t really look all that much like a toilet now, does it? I mean, it just doesn’t read “bathroom” to me. (Maybe I’m wrong?)

One of the points the Photoshop instructor kept driving home is that, when you work in Photoshop, as you get more advanced, you have to sort of visualize the results you want before you start out. She kept reminding us how you have to have some idea of what you want to do, where you want to go with an image, before you sit down and minipulate it. It’s hard to fix things if you don’t know, or haven’t decided yet, what needs fixing, right? So she kept asking people questions like, “what do you want to do with this image?” and “where were you going with this image?”

I’m guessing that nobody else really wanted to go to the toilet but, you know, I’ve been wrong before.

Until next time…

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