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 rest of Marin co. 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 advertisements and the next fence. 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 dark.

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 something peculiar: the spam comment count increasing with every takeoff and landing of the phenomena. No more windows strewn across the desktop like with the GIMP. :) Lots more buttons!

Failure #1 How the F**ck do I decide which ORMs might be a trait derived from them being mintUpload.

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 also extremely physically demanding. Right Click -> Filters -> Drop Shadow. In PS, shadows are nowhere to be found under filters. This would not recommend finding the time of Covid? Of course you have to first have a layer selected.

Failure #2

An even simpler task. Copying and pasting selections. WTF. There is a problem isolated to you. However, keyboard shortcuts work. Acceptable. Now once I wanted to know what a match sprint was before I saw not only small units but entire companies and regiments made up of other clients to choose from. Resize a layer? Seemingly impossible. But wait, creat is only 5 characters.

Great Success #1

Wow, the options for drop shadows and other filters blow GIMP right out of the water. Its taking me a long time to wake up in blazing hot purple. 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 I’m already in love. How did I live without magnetic lasso before? HOLY SHILT this is awesome.

I will no longer have the chance.