I have found myself, most recently being pushed outside of my comfort zone, when it comes to the tools and techniques available for me to use within the design studio. The types of tools we have access too in the fablab are things I have never had access too before. They are powerful, mind-blowing machines, soon to become part of my everyday studies. However, this feeling of having all these tools at my finger-tip has been lost, due to the recent world pandemic of COVID-19. I have been stuck in the isolation of my own home like the rest of New Zealand and i'm bound to find my own tools within my house. While I thought these tools would only consist of a pen and maybe a paintbrush. I have found the time to finally give photoshop ago. Yes, I am a design student that has never used adobe creative cloud. GASP! Well, there was no better time than isolation for me to learn a new skill.
While I could tell you the testing and trialling of Photoshop went smoothly, I would be lying. Photoshop is an intricate, extensive tool, that has so many elements to it. This being said, if you know the ins and outs of the software you really could create anything. As I rapidly tried to grasp the tool, I learnt that I couldn’t tackle the beast of photoshop on my own. I turned to youtube to watch around 4 hours of beginner tutorials. However, I found I was still having difficulty remember to select and unselect each layer before trying to move an object. That being said I am writing this now confidently able to use the software photoshop.
Adobe Photoshop is a fantastic tool in order to adjust and modify already created images, as well as editing photos and using their extensive range of colour filters and textures to bring the difference to your images. - Pluralsight. (n.d.) I soon found this out after lots and lots of experimenting with the tool, when making my storyboard and movie poster for my des 101 assignment. I experimented using photoshop on both a laptop and an iPad. While the laptop provided many more features and was capable of creating more powerful images, the brush tool along with the pen on the iPad, created lots of fantastic works of art. With lots of different brush settings, from your basic hard thick round tip to making your stroke look like a pastel.
I will definitely be using photoshop a lot throughout my design degree and into the future, with its extensive range of capabilities. I can’t believe this software is available at the tip of my fingers. Watch this space for some more beautiful imagery created on photoshop.
References
Pluralsight. (n.d.)