Photoshop is a tool. It doesn’t do the work for you. Presets, Filters and such are wonderful but useless without a mind to guide them.
Tutorials are just that…learning tools. I rarely look at them since I generally don’t need them.
You can’t rely on a computer to do your designing for you any more than you can rely on a paintbrush or camera to do your designing for you.
Do computers design for us?
No
Pizza design by Photoshop is quite common
– as many layers as technically possible.
Engineering diagrams are spoilt by drop shadows.
Example: a reflectance spectrum graphic on the
envelope for the GretagMacbeth ColorChecker.
It doesn’t matter that the spectral colors in the
rainbow color bar are totally wrong –
the designers might have thought that their
photoshopping or indesigning or illustratoring
has to be considered as a great achievement.
Yes, PhS is a good tool, but the automized appli-
cation of cheap effects is IMO a pest.
Best regards –Gernot Hoffmann
Photoshop and the computer are the hammer. We are the carpenter.
Rob
I think there were parallel discussions about the piano a few centuries ago.
Was it a mechanical device or could composers really use it to compose music with?
So, perhaps, the principle is:
do complexities in technology impoverish creativity?
Another interesting slant may be: the impact of bonding between technology and creativity.
For an interesting comparison, you may want to look at one art form that requires a high level of technology: animation (not just computer animation)
Many animators are masters of both art and technology and combining them to achieve a new aesthetic.
Gernot,
If I were a lady, I would indeed have a tiny url. 🙂
Rob (sorry for that)
Craig–
I personally do not think of computers and graphic editors are any different than a paint brush, chisel, or potters wheel. An artist working in any medium is the ‘creator,’ the tools they use are just that, tools. Technology is just another tool.
Tutorials are today’s teachers; they allow us to learn the basics. It is up to the artist to put that knowledge to use in their unique individual way.
We all need to let our inner ‘carpenters’ out.
Carol
wrote:
Hey all,
im doing an essay for uni entitled –
Do computers design for us? – Designing with Photoshop.
I need peoples opinions on this,
do you think that photshop does a lot of the work for you or do you still need that creative imput?
By using photoshop does it direct you in you design work, for example do you think differently when using the computer rather than doing something by hand? (use of tools – presets etc)
im going to look at it at the angle of HANDMADE VS COMPUTER – pro’s and con’s
Do the tutorials tell you what to do, rather than you tell it what you want it to do?
Any comments no matter how long or short would be much appreciated to gather the right info for my essay. As most of you are photoshop experts/advanced users i believe you comments would be ideal to get a true answer to the question!
MANY THANKS
Rob,
a carpenter needs more than a hammer, but
fortunately the tools are supplied by
Adobe programs.
But abuse should be avoided. Here is the
mentioned GMB ColorChecker envelope graphic:
<
http://www.fho-emden.de/~hoffmann/cc-cover.gif>
Obviously a style which was influenced by
the availability of tools. Would anybody
try to ‘improve’ an engineering graphic
by airbrush dropshadows ?
(And again – the rainbow color bar is wrong).
Best regards –Gernot Hoffmann
No, Photoshop does not design for anybody
However, The idea of Pizza design that Gernot points to is true. As it is true with many other pieces of software: People can fake layout using templates in Illustrator or InDesign as well.
That is probably one of the reasons of the success of and hate for CorelDraw: It’s too easy to make ready-made pseudo-design with it. Unjust but based on real stuff.
Besides, design is a fashion-related thing: Once that a line makes a hit, it develops a throng of followers and copy-cats. With this tools the copy cycle goes faster and faster.
When Eye Candy filters appeared, the web and magazines bloomed with drop shadows and strange textures. When KPT 3 was on the scene, fractal textures asolated the web-design scene.
I’d compare in this sense Photoshop (or Corel or whatever) with a microwave oven: It’s a useful tool but it can fake real cooking too fast ;P
Gernot,
Obviously a style which was influenced by the availability of tools
I don’t think that was the point. Your example may show the work of someone who is lead by the properties of the program in stead of the other way around, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the intended use of a tool.
The fabulous Ctein once said
(quote)I see letters at the magazine from people saying "why do you allow people to submit computer generated images! It takes all the art out of it" Didn’t painters always say the same about photographers? It wasn’t true then, it isn’t true now. We make the prints. (unquote)
That’s my meaning too. Photoshop, handled well, is the best tool for pixel editing that I know.
But instead of surfing trough the possibilities and applying every just discovered spectacular effect, one must previsualise an idea, and then manifest that idea at all costs (so to speak).
Rob
On Sat, 6 Jan 2007 10:13:24 -0800, wrote:
Gernot,
Obviously a style which was influenced by the availability of tools
I don’t think that was the point. Your example may show the work of someone who is lead by the properties of the program in stead of the other way around, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the intended use of a tool.
The fabulous Ctein once said
(quote)I see letters at the magazine from people saying "why do you allow people to submit computer generated images! It takes all the art out of it" Didn’t painters always say the same about photographers? It wasn’t true then, it isn’t true now. We make the prints. (unquote)
That’s my meaning too. Photoshop, handled well, is the best tool for pixel editing that I know.
But instead of surfing trough the possibilities and applying every just discovered spectacular effect, one must previsualise an idea, and then manifest that idea at all costs (so to speak).
Rob
This is an interesting philosophical question, and I agree with Rob. If you look at it, today’s painters use ready made paint, so does that mean that their paintings are commercially made? Years ago, painters made their own paints, and how they made them made a difference in their paintings. A good movie to watch on this was "Girl With A Pearl Earring". The story was about the girl, but the painter ( Johannes Vermeer) showed her how he made his paints, and why.
With computers and software like Photoshop, the equipment doesn’t create anything, it just helps people create what their minds conceive. The art is in what the mind can create.
Talker
Take a trip through the Photography Forum, the on going digital verses film wars are pitiful. It’s not the tools, it’s the artist.
Those that disagree are deathly afraid of becoming obsolete/irrelevant because they are sorely lacking creativity and/or incentive.
Barry,
Those that disagree are deathly afraid of becoming obsolete/irrelevant because they are sorely lacking creativity and/or incentive
Ever thought of the many companies and clients allured by ready-made design ala pizza?
Fast food companies (I deny to call them restaurants) did not pull out of trade good restaurants, but they certainly shortened the market and cheaped it a lot.
That said, I am a defender of standadization and sheet styles and templates in my trade (magazine layout) as it enforces consistency and quality applying a design.
THANKS TO ALL FOR YOUR COMMENTS!!!!
there are some really interesting ideas and angle to cover there which i had not thought of, this im sure will help me to create a much more detailed essay…..and an interesting one at that!
once again thanks
The table has been turned. Today’s New York Times reports that some in Hollywood are questioning whether a film that is initially shot by a camera and turned into a cartoon through human-aided computer processing can be considered animation. (This in connection with the Oscar for Best Animated Feature.)
Do computers design for us?
I can’t say any more than Nomad did in post #2.
The table has been turned. Today’s New York Times reports that some in Hollywood are questioning whether a film that is initially shot by a camera and turned into a cartoon through human-aided computer processing can be considered animation.
If rotoscoping can be, why not?
Someone wrote an essay once stating that live action film is a form of animation. The images just happen to be captured at the same frame rate as they are being projected.
Some years ago I saw a short documentary on TV about the making of Looney Toones and all the classical Warner Bros like Elmer, Bugs and the rest.
One of the things they did to reach that fantastic animation was that when they had an idea about a possible scene, they went to a courtyard near the offices and filmed with a cheap camera one or two of them playing the characters to see and decompose the movements so to have a sound basis to start deformating them to achieve the fluid whackiness so peculiar to them.
It was very interesting how they brainstormed moving graphic ideas. I’d like to see it again if I could.
A bit like the method used to create the CGI character Gollum.
