Photoshop abuse.

I know people have the right to do whatever they want with their pictures and photographs, but if there’s one thing that irks me more than auto playing (of shitty) songs on their blogs, especially when they don’t put a fucking ‘stop (this shitty music)’ button, it is the abuse of (probably the best program ever) Adobe Photoshop. Now, if you think I’m talking about you, don’t worry- I won’t be using any real examples here, but if you’ve been browsing the internet enough you should know what I mean. Photographs horribly photoshopped on blogs and friendster.

I think there should be licenses for people to use Photoshop. You’d need to pass some quiz before you can use the program. You’d have to go through a color test, a layout test..oh who am I kidding, people would find some way to circumvent the test anyway- like how people crack their pirated versions of Photoshop. Because anyone willing to fork out $999 (USD mind you) on a program should be a genius at his or her craft or an idiot with a lot of money to spend.

Here are the most common photoshopping atrocities which annoy me-

The whole fucking URL/’don’t steal this image’ blocking the image
Yes i know you don’t want anybody stealing your work, not to say that your photographs were worth stealing in the first place..but by doing that, you rendered your own work impossible to see on your own blog anyway. Seriously, if you want to put a url, do it tastefully or have it small. And subtle. Hell, do away with it. Like Albert– a genius photographer who doesn’t need to label any of his work. At all. I remember him mentioning this before, but I can’t remember when he posted it (Albert, if you read this, link me to that post and I’ll put it here :))

EDIT: I found the link to that page

Of Pictures And Text
Posted by Albert, 3:46:25 AM 27th March 2006 in Rants, Pictures

Why don’t I add text to pictures?

Quite simple.

I don’t have a lot of fonts, so Photoshop loads faster, and if I typed “Pink Honda Jazz” in the picture, instead of typing it out in text, I would not be able to do a text search on it.

I don’t like watermarking my pictures either, not that I’m encouraging that people steal, but often I see great pictures plastered with alpha-transparency text, obstructing the beauty of the picture. If your girlfriend was a model, you wouldn’t tattoo your name on her cheeks would you?

That said, I don’t hate watermarking people, just the bad watermarking. A logo in a corner is better.

The use of cheesy lens flare effects (and countless other filters)
Blur? Rainbows? You name it, they’ll use it.

Heart shapes and other various symbols– drawn badly with a mouse.
Honestly, you have a fucking VECTOR tool, USE IT! It’s easier to draw a nicer looking shape with it than doing ‘free-hand’, yet I don’t see people doing it. Why? I don’t know.

Sometimes you come across a photo like this, and you’re like, “Oh my..I never knew this kid was color blind!”
If you do have a friend like that, link them to this site so that they can learn how colors compliment each other.

And then you have the people who try to do too many fucking things on one photo.

I know you might not be the most brilliant graphic designer out there or a Picasso. But seriously, if you think you have a bad design sense, then don’t design! Just post the damn picture. Put a little caption at the bottom. You’re done! You don’t need to be a virtuoso to do that. Do the internet a favor and let’s make it a better place. Or stick to MS Paint, its good enough.