Essay #70: How much is too much?

One thing I'd forgotten about Photoshop is how easily time is frittered away tweaking tiny details that only I will probably ever notice. Yet I'm never entirely satisfied.

For example, I spent about an hour piecing together this photo from three different frames:

And I could have spent more by pulling the obscured bridesmaid from another shot. But at some point you just have to say enough is enough.

This is my love/hate relationship with Photoshop. I like playing with some of the special effects, and I like that I can make adjustments when the original shot wasn't as optimal as I'd like. But it's easy to get sucked into trying to make every shot "better" when my year-long hiatus from software showed me that I was more satisfied with the end product when shooting without the safety net of post-processing. When does it cross the line from optimization to obsession? Ten minutes? An hour? When does it turn from tool to crutch? When I'm too lazy to take a picture right the first time - or worse, forget how?

Oh, Photoshop. Blessing and bane wrapped up in a slick Adobe package.

Essay #66: Fun with Photoshop

After over a year of being without editing software, I now have a new computer and a fresh install of CS4! Woohoo! Being without software did teach me a lot of valuable lessons and made me realize how easy it is to be lazy and take bad pictures with the intent to "fix" them in post-processing. That said, Photoshop does have some fun toys.

For example, I can take this portrait

And turn it into a lovely black and white (which I like better)

Or do some "special effects" 

Although, with this kind of effect, less is more, in my opinion. It works better with small splashes of color than large swaths. 

 Like so. 

Do you have a favorite Photoshop effect?