Hello,
I’ve been fiddling with photoshop recently and thought I’d share a few creations with you. Let me know what you think.
Enjoy
- ben
if you’re the one who messed her face up like that, i hope she ‘knee-ed’ you 
otherwise, nicely done 
I don’t get the girl with the unibrow? It might be fun, but is it art?
The blue banner looks good – although I’d ease up a little on the font styling. The background is light and ethereal but the text is too chunky to feel a part of the same image.
I’d reduce the outer glow of "blogs.ilovephilosophy.com’ and/or see if a slightly lighter font looks better.
With ‘JT’s Cave’, I think the inner/outer shadows, glows and beveling(?) are overkill for such a small bit of text.
My philosophy is that good art (like women) look classier with just a little ‘make up’, judiciously applied. Bad taste is simply not knowing when to STOP!!! To put it another way, ‘Make things as simple as you can but no simpler’ Einstein.
(If you wanted praise – and not an appraisal – I’m in the poo) 
Hey km,
no that’s exactly what I was looking for. Being artistic is not a forte of mine but computer graphics allows me to delve into the world a little bit. There is no point to the ‘unibrow’ photo, was just trying out techniques basically. I have lots of of photos of kirsten dunst on my computer (ahem) hence why she’s the subject.
Acknowledged on the font styling, I really do get a little style happy and try to add as much as possible. Ill have a fiddle with it and see if I can come up with something a little less garish.
Cheers!
- ben
It may not be your forte Ben, but if you enjoy doodling and learn a few basic do’s an don’ts (like not adding every filter, colour and style to the one graphic) then you’ll be surprised at how good you can make things look. Photoshop is magic.
The blue cave graphic, for example, looks good now but with a bit of fine tuning on the text side, you can make it look really great.
Enjoy.
Is something created via Photoshop really “art”?
Ok here’s the latest installments:
I think the blogs.ilovephilosophy.com needs to be a different colour, doesn’t really fit in with the rest. I think in some way’s the actual text itself is nasty. I don’t like the fact there is an apostrophe in there.
thoughts km?
GCT: If a urinal can be art then so can photoshop.
It’s not one’s tools that makes art, but one’s attitude 
Ben, it gets difficult to give meaningful feedback when the examples change as much as they have. Not only has the colouring changed, so too has the mood and the positon of the text.
I suggest you do several versions, then put them up for comment. Once one is chosen, then minor adjustments can be made to build on that mood, otherwise we’ll be jumping around all night and going around in circles. 
PS I’m about to close down for the night so I’ll check in tomorrow.
Is pressing a certain sequence of computer keys the same as painting the Mona Lisa?
Then again, pressing a certain sequence of computer keys can result in a great work of Literature.
Seriously, I didn’t ask the question to be a smart ass, it simply seemed like a good topic for discussion.
Ben, I like my cave. As I told you, I’ve been in that cave before, but since this is ILP, don’t I get some hot chick wiggling her behind? I mean, at the very least, a super model crotch shot? Given the owner of the blog, I’m going to need something to attract attention other than what I write… 
Honey, I wouldn’t want your little heart racing too much. You know how excited you get after our little webcam interludes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. 
(no crotch shots or you will have to answer to me)
Also, I think the chunky yellow letters detract from the softness of the rest of the piece, and the “j” looks too much like an “i.” I do have a degree in graphic design, you know. Of course that was in the olden days when computers were the size of an Oldsmobile. 
right… “it isn’t the size, it’s how you use it…”
and I have bridge in brooklyn for sale…
-Imp
Bessy!
Shhhhh! I haven’t told anyone about that (except my shrink).
Art is nothing inherently - only criticism makes it meaningful.
- Kirsten Dunst is utterly stunning
- What have you done to her???
-
Agreed.
-
Sorry, she was the first picture on the hard drive!
- ben
Hi Ben
I’ve done a bit of graphic design over the years. Nothing as extensive as others here, but a couple of possibilities? Try capitalizing JT and use the same font and color for the blog line. Slide JT’s cave down into the foreground just below the cave mouth, and a bit to the left of center.
I guess I’ll have to pass on the gratuitous sex images. I don’t want to have to account to Bessy…
If you define art in terms of the Mona Lisa, then Photoshop can never come close.
What digital devices do to analogue music, Photoshop does to art. The analogue white noise and artefacts that gives a piece it’s real, human or natural quality, are processed out so in the end we end up with a caricature of the original signal.
But even more important than the mechanics of painting is the artist him/herself. Even today, in some of the most exclusive art schools, the students don’t touch paints for the first four years. In that time they use pencils and do nothing but study form, light, shading and texture.
So, when it comes to creating a Mona Lisa, only an artist who has dedicated his life to understanding light and how his tools can replicate it, will be able to produce real magic.
If, however, you see art as being primarily intellectual, then Photoshop is as good as any tool.
When the camera won the realism competition, artists went soul searching and began to question what they did other than paint pretty pictures. Art moved from creating eye pleasing (emotional) pictures to a deeper level of meaning (intellectually pleasing).
Duchamp’s Fountain (mentioned above) is a good example. The urinal was not the art piece; the ‘idea’, was. Duchamp used the urinal (ready-made products) to produce a reverse of our habitual, brainwashed way of seeing. By placing an obviously non-artistic object in an art gallery, the object miraculously became art. He thus showed that it was not the object that had inherent artistic value, but the context that embeds the value into it. He was de-deifying both art and artist.
So, if art goes beyond a pretty face, then Photoshop can produce quality art like any other tool.
PS: You can create literary art on a computer because the computer does not add or subtract to the words you’re typing in. The words remain the same whether hand written or digitized.
The writer also has to spend the same amount of time learning the trade regardless of whether he/she writes by hand, typewriter or word processor.