These are the end products of an exercise in the use of Layers in Photoshop for Media 111 – “Pizza and Salad Bar.”
Photoshop Pizza Post
Bad Photoshop?
A new verb for the Oxford English Dictionary? To “photoshop something is to change a picture or photograph using computer software.” It carries with it often negative connotations. The altering of images, particularly of young women, to create some terrible “gold standard” of body image for other young women to aspire to is particularly heinous. So much so that in 2017 France began to require that “. . . any commercial image that has been digitally altered to make a model look thinner will have a cigarette-packet style warning on it. ‘Photographie retouchée’, it will say, which translates to ‘edited photograph’. It’s hoped the change will help tackle extreme thinness among models, and body image problems among those who aspire to shapes they cannot hope to live up to because they were faked on a computer programme.” (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41443027 , 30 September 2017)
But before we rush to condemn the practice of “photoshopping,” let’s first consider its use as an artistic medium of expression, even whimsy. John Wilhelm, Photoshop Jedi Master, combines his love of photography with his talents as a Photoshop Jedi to place his kids in all sorts of imaginative situations. (https://www.johnwilhelm.ch/)
Let’s have John explain:
Pretty cool, huh? Now, let’s have a look at video album housing some of John’s work:
Does Colour Make a Difference?
This post has nothing to do with the sad state of current affairs. It has everything to do with questions were posed as essay cues for a recent assignment in Media 111, Intro to Multimedia Web.
How does color make a difference? Does it matter for Universal Design (UD), User Experience (UX), and User Interface (UI)?
We’ll, I thought, lots of different ways – more than I can count. Of course, it matters, for Universal Design, the User Experience, and the User Interface, collectively the UDXI, perhaps, as they’re all interrelated, I think.
(I managed environmental compliance at large coal-fired power plants for over a quarter of a century. I interfaced with EPA, DEQ, DOE and COE on a host of matters relating to CAA, CWA, my areas of expertise, especially regarding NSPS and NPDES, and often dealt with things RCRA and EPCRA, NEPA and ESA. Acronyms are the bane of the communication…)
Fundamentally, we are all in this class to learn how to make our websites both accessible and appealing, so that our visitors will tarry awhile, and come back again and again to see us.
Regardless of our content, if our style is such that the colours we choose for our fonts and backgrounds are such that our clients cannot absorb the message that we wish to deliver because they cannot see it, or have difficulty doing so, they will neither tarry, nor return. We will have been found in violation of Principle No. 4 of Universal Design, Perceptible Information, guilty of creating a poor user interface.
If our choice of colours is so foreboding or dissonant as to make the visit jarring or uncomfortable, the experience unpalatable, our visitors won’t stay long, and won’t come back.
So, what do we do? Follow the Principles – make it readable, make it comfortable, make it welcoming. A good host puts his or her guests at ease, and ensures that the conversation flows. So, make damn sure that the content is there, too.
Do colors have meaning or messages on their own?
Yes, of course. But be careful – what we might think are intrinsic responses to different colours are heavily influenced by preference, personal experience, and culture. So, be a good hitchhiker, and take along your guide.
How would the GPP of a robot relate to the color it is? (H2G2 reference)
Colour should have absolutely no bearing on “Genuine People Personality,’ or GPP, of a robot – arguably, it is programming, and programming alone. Marvin would be a depressed passive-aggressive, regardless of his skin colour.