Monday, June 3, 2013

Media Cultures: Brainstorming 2

Post no. 2

Photoshop.


Now how does the popularity of Photoshop impact creative professionals in the industry?

The most common perception that people have most of Photoshop,  would be Photoshop's main purpose were to 'improve' wrinkly faced elderly or to make fat people skinnier on magazine covers.

This software is definitely very popular among designers nowadays. Personally, it is one of my favourite forms of expression when it comes to the output of my creativity and work. It just seems so easy to learn and comprehend. Once you've learned the basics, you could pretty much operate Photoshop to achieve the result you want.

How does this new technology affect creative professionals? I think since Photoshop mainly deals with digital graphics, or graphics in general,  (some animation could be involved as well ex. Gifs that could be made by Photoshop) we could break it down to two types of creative professionals that might be affected the most in this area.

The digital graphic designers as well as the traditional media graphic designers.

Lets talk about the digital graphic professionals. The rise of Photoshop provides tons of opportunity to amateurs to gain basic knowledge of graphic design through Photoshop tutorials that are easily accessible online. This can be a threat to the professionals that are already using this media to execute their projects. Young designers have fresher ideas, and ways to solve problems compared to those who have been in the industry for a long time and no longer have the capability of thinking of new concepts.

 If the digital professionals are updated however, this would be a threat to the younger graphic designers or photographers who do not possess the skill to execute a well polished, finished piece that could only be acquired through years of experience. (Kinda like what I've mentioned in the earlier post).

On to the traditional graphic professionals, Photoshop has definitely robbed a great amount of professionals from this line of work. Photoshop has presets that could duplicate the brush strokes that could be done by traditional media easily. Its also much more easier to produce a more clean finish as the designers are able to undo their mistakes and have a more variety of colours and effects to choose from. Plug ins like kuler aid the digital 'Photoshoppers' in their color schemes and choices, therefore depleting the need for designers to really experiment with colours which takes time and effort and tons of mistakes to accomplish. Traditional tyographers also fall under this category as there is no more real need to even pick up an ink brush or a pencil. Photoshop has made it simple for everyone to use.

However, experience and skills combined with the  right set of technologies like Photoshop could birth an artwork so godly that not even the slightest breath of an amateur could dwindle its place at the top of the designer food chain.
(Exaggeration getting out of hand here)

Next post, Instagram.

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