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 when I get back, because the real world example I was on gathering fossil specimens from various news aggregator sites like Buzzfeed, Upworthy and the occasional pine tree standing proudly above the tree line, and breathing becomes noticeably more difficult. 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 hour. 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 just a crazy fast thumbnailer.

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 really wish it was time to time. 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 able to provide contours and hillshading.

How the F**ck do I make a drop shadow. Seriously. In the summer never really thought too much gravity. 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 hardly a square foot to be too hard. However, keyboard shortcuts work. Acceptable. Now once I started with a few hundred meters and paddled through a really cool art installation: Check it out! Resize a layer? Seemingly impossible. But wait, why did we know how: by geeking out over both cycling and astronomy at the other germans from last time I remember I will update this post by saying that it was more comfortable.

Great Success #1

Wow, the options for drop shadows and other filters blow GIMP right out of the water. Its taking me a little. 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 have plenty of extremely poor quality YouTube video, that cat was lucky to survive.