Photoshopped?
It’s funny how the name of an image editing program has been mangled into a verb. You’ll hear people use the word ‘photoshopped’ all the time. Even non artists have a basic understand of what photoshop is and what it does. I suppose this demonstrates the mythic status and the mighty power that the program is accepted to possess. But comments like “Is it real?” “No, you can tell that’s been photoshopped…” highlight a misconception that a lot of people have, which is that Photoshop has all the power and the photoshop artist needs none.
Saying you can spot something that’s been ‘photoshopped’ seems to imply some sort of failure with the program, when in fact the outcome of an image is actually wholly dependent upon the person using the program.
Adobe Photoshop is after all, just a program. An amazingly versatile, professional, industry standard program, no doubt. But a program just the same. It doesn’t actually do anything by itself. There’s no magic involved. Just a lot of hard work, passion and talent. Photoshop is just a tool. Much the same way that a paintbrush is just a tool. It can make a huge difference who’s wielding it. A bad painting doesn’t imply a bad paintbrush does it?
Of course the most successful work produced using photoshop will usually go unnoticed, but I guess that’s the true indication of success. That’s when you know you must be doing something right. My goal is to use photoshop to the extent of it’s abilities, or at least the extent of mine and create a little magic along the way.
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