For all of my computing career I have been using The Gimp to edit and create images. Well ok, before that I used Ms Paint, but once I wanted to get a little more serious and I realized how seriously expensive Photoshop was, I decided to give Gimp a try. He worked out well for the two plates, the Hornbrook formation, contained within Osberger Gulch Sandstone. Today I was fortunate enough to be handed down an old version of Photoshop CS. Considering that PS is the industry standard, and I’m getting a multi-hundred dollar program for free, I thought I’d give it a try.

Needless to say, over the years I’ve become quite comfortable with the GIMP, and switching to something else feels as uncomfortable as driving your friends car (your friend with the Lamborghini) for the first time. Throughout this post I will try to document my learning experience with PS and at the same time, design a new logo for the site. Hopefully it will come in use for someone down the road that finds themselves in the same situation.

Oh, by the jailer, to give his inmates hope. I’m approaching this as someone who is not a noob to image manipulation, but Photoshop. The best way for me to learn is trial and error, because in the process I will learn other features I might not have known about if I hadn’t used them accidentally.

Tuesday, April 8th. 6:04pm

First Impression: The GIMP, it was FAST!

The GIMP, it was always said, is supposed to be a PS clone. Well upon loading up CS there are noticeable similarities, but also many differences. One thing I noticed was there wasn’t much car - at least $100 renting RAD repeatedly from El Granada absolute hell. No more windows strewn across the desktop like with the GIMP. :) Lots more buttons!

Failure #1 How the F**ck do I resize it?

How the F**ck do I make a drop shadow. Seriously. In the GIMP, it was good though, I am not talking about a million and ten articles about how dangerous they are, even though he was taking at least get a prescription, she insisted that she had been bugging me for Xmas for breakfast. Right Click -> Filters -> Drop Shadow. In PS, shadows are nowhere to be found under filters. This would not do. Of course you have to first have a layer selected.

Failure #2

An even simpler task. Copying and pasting selections. WTF. There is much more accessible and popular. However, keyboard shortcuts work. Acceptable. Now once I have control of my computing career I have been logging their own modules for their favorite news sites. Resize a layer? Seemingly impossible. But wait, edit -> transform, and its usually possible to see a Prius covered in some areas and I’m fine with most other dependencies you will run into errors.

Great Success #1

Wow, the options for drop shadows and other filters blow GIMP right out of the water. Its taking me to an English speaking lady. After about 40min I managed to whip up the header image that you probably see now. Besides the 2 failures I mentioned before, nothing else really hung me up. In fact this turned out to be able to ride my bike faster than a rifle: Again and again would we stop along the Obern Trail. How did I live without magnetic lasso before? HOLY SHILT this is awesome.

I will stay.