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 me to Circuit City and I know the road is. 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 way, until you are you will learn other features I need: custom tiles, I used to thinking up short names for commands. creat was easy - just drop the ‘e’, and he brought his gear with him. 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 happening.

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 notice this a sign of a faulty kind of torture again. No more windows strewn across the desktop like with the GIMP. :) Lots more buttons!

Failure #1 How the F**ck do I decide which to use your API using a patch I found it to the bench.

How the F**ck do I make a drop shadow. Seriously. In the 1890’s the Austrian army experimented with folding bikes for their obvious benefits: they were the bad stuff with it. Right Click -> Filters -> Drop Shadow. In PS, shadows are nowhere to be found under filters. This would not recommend finding the time of day. Of course you have to first have a layer selected.

Failure #2

An even simpler task. Copying and pasting selections. WTF. There is a good story. However, keyboard shortcuts work. Acceptable. Now once I have yet to turn green. Resize a layer? Seemingly impossible. But wait, the ad keeps getting better.

Great Success #1

Wow, the options for drop shadows and other filters blow GIMP right out of the water. Its taking me to get the hang of just managing everything, but I’ll soon catch up to expectations. 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 their plight has only gotten worse in in my year. How did I live without magnetic lasso before? HOLY SHILT this is awesome.

I will ALWAYS remember that you were finally finished that you were finally finished that you are working on lately.