It seems like everyone today is an amateur photographer. Whereas taking pictures used to be a relatively involved process, the introduction of digital cameras has made taking pictures a painless proposition. You don’t have to buy film, send it away to be developed, and wait for the prints to come back. The process is now almost instantaneous and almost free. Digital cameras are everywhere today: including in our phones and digital entertainment devices (i.e., iPods). If you own an iPhone, iPod Touch, or Android device then Adobe has an app for you to try. It’s called PS Express and bills itself as a stripped down version of their popular image editing software, Photoshop. While it’s not practical to do any heavy-duty digital work on such a small device, there are some very cool things you can do.

The program’s interface is very simple and should be easy for anyone to understand without reading the documentation. I tried a couple of the digital effects features and found them interesting. While the controls are fairly rudimentary, the results are pretty good. The process is very quick and includes options to upload the final result to a number of popular websites. You’ll probably be editing images taken by the device you’re using, so the quality of the pictures will be dependent on how good it’s built-in camera is. This isn’t really a problem though, since the camera in most of these devices is reasonably good.

This is a free download from the Apple or Android app stores. Adobe provides a few free filters and effects to get you started, but sells many more. The plan is to get you hooked and then make money with added content. This is fairly typical of apps these days, and is a good way to try without a monetary commitment.

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Some Examples

Original photograph (taken with an iPod Touch 4G).

The “sketch” effect.

The “pop” effect.

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I don’t know that I could justify spending money on this app or any of the additional effects, but the free version is good for a little harmless fun. For serious digital editing, I would still recommend a proper desktop image editing program like Photoshop or Gimp.

3 Stars!

Gimp is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It’s a freely distributable painting program aimed at competing with commercial applications like Photoshop. This review isn’t intended to be feature specific, but rather to provide a general idea of its performance and abilities from the perspective of someone whose background is with Photoshop.

I’ve been aware of Gimp for a long time, but have resisted trying it because it looked so different. Photoshop had served me well and there was never a compelling reason to learn something new. However, as Photoshop has evolved and the updates have become more and more expensive (the current version is $699), alternatives look more and more attractive. Additionally, word-of-mouth advertising has always been fairly positive for Gimp, so I decided to finally give it a try.

My plan was to recreate a simple graphics project that I had previously done with Photoshop, while referring to Gimp’s documentation as little as possible. While this might seem unfair at first blush, I should point out that this is the same way I learned to use Photoshop.

I loaded a caricature that I had done for a friend a couple of years ago and proceeded to recreate the coloring as closely as I could using Gimp. All the tools that I’m used to using were in Gimp’s toolbar (although it took a little time to find them all). I end up importing the highlight and shadow layers from Photoshop to save time, but other than that, it was all created using Gimp.

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The original Photoshop version.

The recreation using Gimp.

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Although Gimp feels a little rough around the edges, it’s hard to argue with the results. Most of the tools that I was used to seeing in Photoshop were also in Gimp and the final product looks very similar. If you must have the latest and greatest Photoshop features or if money isn’t an issue, then stick with Photoshop. It’s one of the first paint programs and without question is still the best available. However, if your needs are more modest or money does matter to you, then consider Gimp. It’s a solid performer with a full-featured toolset. The developers are releasing new versions all the time, so it’s only going to get better and more capable. The best part is that it’s free!

4 Stars!

School is completed (for now), so this blog needs to evolve a bit to reflect the things I’m currently working on.

Believe it or not, I’ve been putting off posting so that my current Demo Reel stays at the top of the page — I have a few resumes out and didn’t want the Demo Reel to be hard to find (obviously I need to make some layout changes!)

I’m playing around with Anime Studio & Toon Boom at the moment — both pieces of software intended to help with 2D animation. My brother and I are planning to animate a cartoon strip he created a few years ago called “Altered Ego”. It’s primarily his baby, but it gives me something to plug into the software. Here is a sample of what it looks like (his drawing, my coloring) …

Slightly modified version of my demo reel.

A couple of drawings I did today for friends — colorized pencil sketches (a bit of an experiment for me).

I’m a Certified Residential Real Estate Appraiser, but it wasn’t always that way …

I started drawing when I was 8 years old. When other kids were playing baseball, I was drawing. When other kids were watching television, I was drawing. When other kids were doing ANYTHING, I was drawing! Then, when I was 11-12 years old I discovered comic books and suddenly knew what I wanted to do with my life!

When I was 14 years old I took a Graphic Arts class and learned about layout & design, paste-up, printing, etc. I didn’t know it at the time, but that was the beginning of the first chapter of my professional life. I started working after school in the “print shop” just before my 15th birthday. I worked there until leaving to study art at Central Michigan University. I was only there one year before deciding that wasn’t where I wanted to be. I came back home and started attending Lake Michigan College and working part time at the print shop again.

Then things changed. My boss had a stroke and I was asked to temporarily take over. Temporary lasted 15 years! In what seems like quick succession, I became Director of Graphic Arts, got married, built a house, had a child, etc, etc. — life just happened (as they say). It was all good.

Then things changed again. I’ll spare the details, but I became a single parent raising a 3 year old daughter. I loved my job, but I had to be practical — I needed more money and a more flexible schedule. A friend was a real estate appraiser and had been trying for a couple of years to convince me to come and work with him. So, in 1998 I became an appraiser.

Cut to 2009. My daughter graduates high school and moves away. What now? Appraising was very comfortable, but I really wanted back into graphic arts. The profession had changed a lot since I left (in very cool ways), so I decided to go back to school.

Cut to NOW. In a few hours I graduate! It’s been an interesting couple of years.  Wonder what’s next?

I uploaded a low-res pdf of the magazine I had printed for my final presentation (click on the image above to view/download it). If anyone is interested in a printed version, let me know.

Just before spring break, we were given an assignment in Portfolio Practicum on “Civil Discourse”. We would have had around eight weeks to work on it as I understood it. However, when we returned from break, the instructors told us that they were accelerating the schedule and it was due in two weeks! I had to throw out most of what I had done over break and rework it into a two week project. It probably ended up being for the best, since I’ve killed myself this semester trying to be an over-achiever — this way, I only had to kill myself for two weeks (instead of eight). I’m happy with the results and was able to learn a couple of cool new tricks in After Effects along the way.

It’s been an eventful semester (to say the least). Definitely not what I expected, but I’ve decided to be happy overall about the experience and accept that things turned out the way they were meant to.

The past couple of years have been a positive experience overall. I put in a Herculean effect and produced a TON of new work! I pulled a 4.0 GPA (of course) and learned to use a few pieces of software that I’ve been meaning to tackle for a long time (3DS Max, After Effects, and Illustrator). I met some great people and made a few friends that will hopefully last beyond school.

This is the final demo reel that I’ll be presenting next week. I had DVDs & a 16 page magazine printed that I’ll be using as part of a “leave behind” package. I also created an old fashioned portfolio (my first completely new portfolio in years!).

I graduate May 1st … it’s been a LONG two years!