From Fumbling to Growing: Final Thoughts on Photoshop

I started this assignment with two goals; to learn how to use Photoshop and do critical analysis on the history and use of it. I feel I have completed both of these goals in multiple ways. 

Through planned projects, I’ve been able to incorporate Photoshop into my life in meaningful ways, such as creating a piece of art and participating in an online community. Along with giving me valuable technical skills, practicing Photoshop has allowed me to be a more informed consumer of media. I’ve been given an introduction to the field of photo-editing that will allow me understand where and how digital media is produced.

Furthermore, critical research in the past and present history of Photoshop and photo manipulation in general has given me valuable insight on this piece of technology. The most important points I learned were:

• The desire to edit photography is as old as the technology itself.
• Photo-editors share the desire to alter perceptions of the world, but differ on whether to use this for personal or public benefit as well as whether to both hide or expose the truth.
• Photoshop did not change why people edit photos, but rather changed the ease of use and access to photo-editing tools.
• Modern users of Photoshop share interests with early photomontage artists. Both groups use photo-editing as an alternative form of communication and encourage the sharing their works for social purposes
• Photoshop simultaneous raises the concern for ethical photo manipulation while making it easier to expose corrupt practices.

·         In combination with the Internet, Photoshop and other media creation tools are a means to empower the individual to interact and play with media as well as create political and social commentary.

Now that my project is complete, I have two new goals. First, I wish to continue using Photoshop so I can enhance my creative potential and find more ways it can help me be a part of participatory culture. Second, I hope I can take the analytical skills I learned through both researching Photoshop and creating this blog to perform similar critiques on media and technology and share my views with the world.

I hope this blog has been valuable to you in some way. Thanks for reading!

Reading Reflection - Memes in Digital Culture

I’m a huge fan of Internet culture. I’m fascinated by the ways people interact online, the communities that are formed, and the unique practices that grow to create a diverse online culture. From the practical uses of Facebook to the entertainment in YouTube and even the depths of 4chan, I find value in analyzing the ways the Internet has shaped our worldview. My love of the Internet made the book Memes in digital culture by Limor Shifman a fascinating read. Not only does Shifman dissect the unique aspects of Internet memes and digital culture in ways that helped me understand the culture I love better, but her research provides numerous examples of how Photoshop has provided cultural and political power to Internet users. 

Playful interaction with images becomes easier with tools like Photoshop

As the title suggests, Shifman’s main focus is defining and analyzing Internet memes. She offers her own definition of Internet memes, calling them “a group of digital items sharing common characteristics of content, form, and/or stance, which were created awareness of each other, and were circulated, imitated, and/or transformed via the Internet by many users.” Though this book may seem unrelated to my project at first, understanding memes is incredibly relevant to analyzing Photoshop because a great portion of memetic content has been created and proliferated by Photoshop. Numerous categories of memes that Shifman defines, such as reaction Photoshops, LOLcats, Advice Animals, and Rage Comics, all originate from amateur use of Photoshop. Photoshop makes it easier for Internet memes to be produced and reproduced by providing Internet users a fast and easy photo-editing tool. 

Photoshop-related memes like Casually Pepper Spray Everything cop offer powerful political statements

Along with defining Internet memes, Shifman’s main argument is that memes should be taken more seriously for what they tell us of digital culture. Memes can be seen as agents for new modes of political participation, subversion of authority, and globalization. As part of the tools people use for meme-making, Photoshop is a powerful instrument for political discussion. For instance, Shifman analyzes the online success of the 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement. The memetic initiation of the movement was a poster made by the group Adbusters featuring a ballerina dancing on Wall Street’s charging bull statue. This use of photo-manipulation facilitated through Photoshop allowed people to express their anger over wealth inequality.

Photoshop is a powerful and important aspect of digital culture. It allows individuals to alter images not only for humorous and entertaining purposes, but to make powerful commentary on society and politics. Shifman urges readers to take notice of how memes play a powerful role in participatory culture; I believe we should also give the same attention to the tools such as Photoshop. The format media is created and distributed shapes how we view and interact with media, such as how mp3 files are designed to be easy to share (Sterne, 2012). If we are to analyze Internet memes, the formats they are created with, such as Photoshop, must be analyzed as well.

Bibliography:

Shifman, L. (2014). Memes in digital culture. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press

Sterne, J. (2012). “The MP3 as Cultural Artifact.” New Media and Society 8(5):5: Duke University Press: 825-838

Project #3: Photoshop Battle!

My final posts will talk about how Photoshop has been used by Internet users as a powerful tool for communication, especially through memetic processes. As a final test of my skills, I decided to test my strengths in Photoshop with the reddit community.

One of my favorite subreddits is /r/photoshopbattles. A redditor post an image they would like to see altered, other redditors take the photo and Photoshop it, then reddit community votes on their favorite edits. I browsed through the subreddit last night and participated in two Photoshop battles.

Here is the first image I decided to edit. The original post of it can be found here.

And here is my Photoshop. If you're not a fan of Spongebob, you may need to watch an episode to get this one :)

In my other battle, my edit was actually the fourth in a series of edits. The order of the following images are the original post, an edit in response to another edit, and then my final response. This comment thread should help.

Though I didn't get any comments on my edits, a got a few upvotes. I made at least a few people happy!

Photoshop and Ethics: Conclusions

                New media technologies can arrive so fast that neither legal nor cultural forces are able to address the ethical concerns. In the past decade, the introduction of numerous digital technologies has brought about all sorts of growing pains that need to be addressed. Photoshop, like other media production technologies, must me given attention in order to stop dangerous behaviors and trends from happening. The ease this program brings for photo manipulation increases the opportunities for people to misuse it. As such, both authorities like news providers and the public must demand education in order to avoid the dangers of altering reality.

                I’ve discovered through learning to use Photoshop and researching it that the ethical concerns extend beyond the realm of body images. Photojournalists have used the program to make their work more visually appealing, breaking the purpose of journalists to provide an accurate representation of the world to the public (Ricchiardi, 2007). Politicians from both parties have used Photoshop for their own benefit to adjust reality (McQuade, 2014), (Sullivan, 2013). It’s incredible how easy it is to perform this; when I practiced editing news photos, it took me around an hour to edit all the photos to how I wanted.

                The desire to alter reality using Photoshop can be explained with the idea of remediation. Bolter and Grusin argue our culture desires remediation by both increasing the amount of media available and erasing all traces of mediation (2000). Photoshop provides a platform for people to make the difference between original images and doctored ones much harder to see. Users of Photoshop practice a form of remediation by closing the gap between real and fake and then spreading these images through the web. 

                Though Photoshop certainly provides ethical issues, the same world of digital technologies it is a part of allows us to be more critical of media and detect possible breaches of ethics. The public subverts traditional media by creating their own images, while bloggers and other communities provide scrutiny over the images presented for us. While new media like Photoshop always present new concerns for society, they simultaneous present new benefits and powers.

                This concludes my segment on Photoshop and ethics. In my final posts, I’ll be analyzing how Photoshop in tandem with digital culture has provided amazing opportunities for individuals to shape culture and politics. Thanks for reading!

Bibliography:

Bolter, J. D. and Grusin, R. (2000). “Introduction” Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge: MIT Press, pp 3-15.

McQuade, D. (2014, October 17). Tom Corbett's Campaign Photoshopped Him Next to a Black Woman. Retrieved from Philedelphia Magazine: http://www.phillymag.com/news/2014/10/17/tom-corbett-campaign-photoshop/

Ricchiardi, S. (2007). DISTORTED PICTURE. American Journalism Review, 29(4), pp. 36-43.

Sullivan, S. (2013, January 4). Pelosi defends altered photo of Democratic women. Retrieved from Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/01/04/pelosi-defends-altered-photo-of-democratic-women/