PSD Love
If you learn anything, make it Photoshop! And here’s why…
Our beloved Photoshop, now in its 20th year, is quite simply the core of our digital imaging and design universe, and is certainly the most powerful and essential tool to have in your digital design toolbox. Another point, Photoshop is simply the most used program in the field too. It’s popularity means that the .PSD format is widely used across design disciplines from traditional and expected fields such as print, web to digital filmmaking and special effects and into lesser known fields such as interior, fashion and architectural design, plus user interface design for every genre of gaming and even educational software.
Just take a look at the works of amazing graphic artists using Photoshop such as Christopher Haines, ( neondreams.com.au ) who is a young graphics artist who hails from Perth, Australia, and who delivers on a whole new level by mixing 3D and photo manipulation and surrealism. more of his work here. (behance.net/neondistractions)
Wojciech Magiersky aka M4gik (http://abduzeedo.com/interview-photo-illustrator-wojciech-magierski), who has unbelievable Photoshop skills and clearly a very creative mind. Wojciech operates out of Cracow, Poland and focuses on photo manipulation and illustration and uses colour and lighting effects to create dynamic images as seen here.
When you have Photoshop under control as these guys do, your creative horizons will expand exponentially, and – the best part – it will continue to thrill you with new design possibilities the more you use it. If you are already a loving Photoshop user, visit psdtuts+ (http://psd.tutsplus.com/) to access our favourite Photoshop tutorials online.
So, let’s quickly explore some further flung fields where Photoshop has become an indispensible design, communication or training tool:
It is probably lesser known that Photoshop is extensively used in the field of real-time graphics applications for the entertainment, education and simulation markets. Flight simulation software, although also 20 years in the making, has immensely enjoyed the ongoing benefits of Photoshop to create high resolution, geo-specific and photo-realistic environments for flight and defense training. Graphics artists in this field especially take advantage of Photoshop Extended’s advanced 3D capabilities to shorten their production cycles and produce even more realistic and accurate scenery.
Medical specialists such as physicians, ophthalmic photographers and researchers have been able to overcome many challenges in the medical imaging field. In performing tasks as intricate as photographing the inside of the eye, ophthalmic photographers use a “fundus” camera – a special device used to push light through the pupil – in order to detect disease of the retina. Photoshop is used to eliminate unwanted shadowing and correct common lighting imperfections.
“Adobe Photoshop Extended is ideal for both image processing and basic analysis. It’s great to have a single, powerful tool that handles both processing and analysis to make my workflow faster and easier.” says Eric Wexler, research scientist
You don’t have to be a brain surgeon to use Photoshop Extended but in the case of neurosurgery, it helps. Brain surgery and Photoshop go hand in hand for surgeons who using imagery refined in Photoshop to help their patients visually understand their medical conditions and also improve collaboration with other professionals when diagnosing or researching. Cool.
In the field of scientific research, world-renowned astrophotographers such as David Malin, are bringing colour and clarity to images of distant galaxies and star clusters by replacing manual darkroom techniques with Photoshop’s more efficient digital imaging magic and thereby enhancing vast sets of archived images, some captured as early as the 70′s, in a fraction of the time.
