Photoshop Basics
What are some differences between .JPEG and .PSD files? What are some some reasons you would use each?
.JPEG and .PSD (flattened) are common output files. .JPEG is useful because it is a small enough file that you can save a large quantity of these files to one device, as well as transfer quickly. But, .JPEG is a lossy compression file, which means it throws away some information within the file every time it is saved. It might be the preferred method for output because it is easy/quick to transfer. .PSDs, however, are high quality files that are able to save all photoshop options without compression loss. This is an ideal file to save while in process because you can view all layers. When it comes to output, you can flatten your image (to lose all layers) and still save at a high quality. For that reason, it is creatively preferable to .JPEG, though some clients may prefer to receive your image in .JPEG form.
What is Adobe Bridge? What does it enable you to do?
Adobe Bridge is a file browser ideal for collaborations where multiple users need to have access to a collection of images. It allows you to look at your work clearly and comprehensively — you can view large thumbnails of your work, or list files by name, you can easily create new folders, move files, and view lots of information about each file. Compared to Lightroom, it is also capable of recognizing more file formats.
What key is a shortcut to having Photoshop take up the entire screen on your computer?
F key will toggle between the different full screen modes (with/without menu bars).
What are the keyboard shortcuts to view your image at 100% and ‘fit to screen’?
Command + 1 = 100%
Command + 0 = Fit to screen
How do you pan around a document without clicking on the Tools panel?
Press the “h” button, or the space bar, then click and drag the mouse where you want to go.
Response to Temkin’s “Non-Object Oriented Art:”
What are some of the key distinctions the author is making about glitch art?
Temkin argues that glitch art is an attempt to render the meeting of and tension between human logic and machine logic. It is an imperfect conversation that reveals the complexity and absurdity of the “journey to logic” — logic as defined by human and by machine.
Temkin defines glitch as a failure in the eyes of the human, but perfectly rational in the eyes of the machine. “Bad” data, as characterized by the human, is not judged “bad” by the technology. It fails at failing, from our perspective, because it is not understood by the machine to be less than. Then, there exists a gap between logic. A misunderstanding encapsulated in a visual misrepresentation.
The methodology of glitch art, Temkin argues, should follow the conceptual framework. Glitch art should be, as detailed by Menkman (blog post 2010), more than just a Photoshop filter. Once the artist has an understanding of how a glitch comes to be, it is domesticated (no longer a spontaneous glitch – also Menkman, blog post 2010), but an intended imperfection. The technology is then simply a tool, a brush, at the hand of the artist. Glitch art should be something surprising and unpredictable, a collaboration between human and machine, communicating imperfectly. It is after the unknown within the machine, the “wilderness,” that is human in it’s failures.
Are there cultural or technical reasons why you feel giving up control of the final output is important to these artists? And are there reasons you would or would not want to do this in your own work?
Culturally, I can imagine why collaboration with imperfect technology is central to these artists’ process. As we rapidly move towards the technologization of nearly everything — automated jobs, self-driving cars, smart appliances — there is an implicit assumption that this is a good thing. That automation is somehow more perfect or offers us a more perfect future. That digitalization will enable more perfect truths and act with pure logic. The implications of that are stressful and scary to me. What happens when these automated systems are corrupted? Either intentionally or unintentionally at the hands of humans?
Exposing the hiccups of technological logic is both amusing —
(Google’s artificial intelligence interprets photos as animal faces, with creepy results by James Titcomb 02 Jul 2015 for the Telegraph: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/11684183/Googles-artificial-intelligence-interprets-photos-as-animals-with-creepy-results.html)
— perhaps because we recognize our imperfect, imaginative, sometimes poorly attuned thought processes in them — and also valuable at a societal level. Being critical of the role of technology, exposing imperfections, and questioning the role it plays in our social systems is necessary as our relationship to technology shifts on such a monumental scale.
I have never considered technology a collaborator. I usually shy away from creating digital work and at most have used simple Lightroom techniques to edit photographs of my work. Come to think of it, I once used a scanner, out of necessity and curiosity, as a camera of sorts. I found it entertaining and freeing. I didn’t question my relationship to it on a deeper level — I mostly thought of it as a medium like any other.
As a person, I am overwhelmed by the role of technology in media today. A few years ago, I abandoned my Facebook account. I have a Twitter account and Instagram account that I check very rarely and with intention – I never post. I am fearful of my ignorance as I engage with it. And, it sometimes makes me feel disengaged, or too engaged, or too heady (unembodied)… So, I minimize my time with it, while considering to question (pretty passively, if I’m being honest) my reasons for participating or not participating.
This class would be an excellent opportunity for me to further dive into these personal questions and anxieties by actually tackling the medium itself. I think collaborating with it would be a daunting, but fantastic, way to contend with these half-baked thoughts and fears.
Initial response to Josh Azzarella
https://www.artsy.net/artwork/josh-azzarella-untitled-number-20
Josh Azzarella’s practice complicates iconic visuals, evocative images representing shared histories, by omission. Azzarella’s selects contextually-loaded photographs — such as Tank Man (by Jeff Widener for the AP), which represents the protests at Tiananmen Square, a U.S. soldier posing with prisoners in Abu Ghraib (Sabrina Harman), and Napalm Girl (by Nick Ut) — and digitally removes a key visual subject within the image.
I find this practice so compelling because it asks participation of the viewer. Upon viewing the image, most Western audiences (at least those who had access to these iconic images from school, or the internet, or the press) first notice that something is off. Immediately, our brains are searching for what is missing. We imagine the original image with which we are familiar, compare it to what we are seeing before us, and mentally track what is being left out.
What is being left out is often key to locating the image in history. The tanks are digitally removed from Tank Man, the prisoners removed from the Abu Ghraib image, and Phan Thị Kim Phúc and other children are removed from Napalm Girl. In demanding the audiences witness a deliberate omission, Azzarella is dually calling attention to what isn’t there. Not all of Azzarella’s creation-via-omissions are from journalistic photography (he sometimes uses images from popular culture, like iconic movie stills), but I find the reportage images most evocative. The implications extend to the notion of truth itself — images that we trust to be objective and informative are convincingly altered, at least technically so, and we are left to grapple with our trust in image capture, image production, image distribution, as a truth-telling medium. We are forced to contend with the technological capabilities of people in power to censor information flow and our (in)ability to detect it. We are asked to identify who (and what) is being omitted. Whose stories and experiences are not brought into the light of local, national, international discourse? As a viewer actively processing the image, we are implicated. We are called upon to do something. I, for example, started researching the events of the original photographs I mentioned above. I was moved to know more, to educate myself, to engage with the historical context as Azzarella did.
Work like Azzarella’s I find to be, often, more accessible and engaging than a written piece of journalism. I feel included in the discourse, I feel implicated, I feel emotionally moved, I feel mentally stimulated. I am deeply excited by visual work, like this, that implicates and evokes thought and action from the viewer.
Emerging Media 1 