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Colin
Smith
Photoshop
Cafe |
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| You seem to be fully
devoted to Photoshop. What attracted you the most when you opened
the Photoshop for the first time? |
| I think it was the ability
to do realistic drop shadows that first got my attention. What a surprise
when I found i could do way more. |
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| You
have worked with so many versions of Photoshop. What do you think
of the gradual progress of the software? |
I started on vs 2.5. 3.0 was
a Godsend with the ability to add layers. Then in 4-5 there was a
lot of emphasis on making things editable and easier to add effects.
5.5 - Was all about the web. 6.0 was a major upgrade, taking web and
type to the next level. The big thing on 7.0 was OSX and XP native
support. 7 has some really sweet productivity tools and is excellent
for the digital photographer with things like the file browser, healing
brush etc.
Where will it go from here? Hmm my guess is perhaps digital video
and closer integration with after effects. I would really like to
see Imageready integrated into Photoshop. |
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| As
a professional, what feature of the Photoshop you think unbeatable? |
| The biggest thing Photoshop
has over the competition is excellent stability, flexibility and a
huge feature-set. Also the fact that it is industry standard is very
important, this way it ensures that there will always be an excellent
support base around the product. |
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| Tell us your opinion
about Image Ready. Do you think it is one of the best gif animation
software in the market? |
| I use Imageready for all my
web related image preparation. There are probably better programs
out there for animations, but I am not a huge fan of animated gifs
anyway, I find them to be pretty annoying on a webpage a lot of the
time, not to mention they really slow things down. |
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| Do
you think there is any serious competition to Photoshop? |
| There is competition from Paintshop
Pro, Corel Photopaint and MS Image Composer. But Serious competition?
I don't see anything coming close. |
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| How much importance
you give to third party plugins? |
| That all
depends on what I'm doing. If I am creating artwork for fun I usually
don't use any because I enjoy the challenge of figuring things out
on my own. If I am working on a commercial project, then I will use
whatever tools will help me to accomplish the results as quickly and
easily as possible. There are some really useful plug ins from Extensis,
Alienskin, AutoFX, Procreate and Andromeda. Also the plug in site
has some good ones |
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You have created an astonishing artwork with
Photoshop. The minute details of that artwork are amazing. Can you
tell us the concept behind that artwork? |
| Thanks.
When I am working on a photorealistic image, I am looking for the
little things that take an image from realistic to photorealistic.
They are usually the small things like light reflections, overlapping
shadows, textures and atmospheric effects. Sometime I will create
a lot of layers to get the exact result I am looking for. The secret
is to not try and finish the whole image in 1 sitting, but rather
be patient and work on one section at a time. |
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| Your
tutorials are quite different from others. Again more towards minute
details. Do you think a person should have fine art background to
become Photoshop professional? |
| If you learn
the software and try to understand how it works, you can produce almost
any effect without resorting to painting it in. However an art background
will never hurt. A developed eye is one of the greatest assets and
with practice and patience anyone can develop an eye. |
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| How was the experience
of writing books on Photoshop? |
| Late nights
and lots of coffee. Actually I have really enjoyed it, its a lot of
work, but the results are worth it. |
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| What is your basic
approach while writing book? |
| I really
enjoy teaching other people how to do what I do in plain English (Or
whatever language the book is translated into). I could try to impress
everyone with my knowledge, but that would be a very boring book to
read. I personally hate books where the author rambles on about him/herself
and you need a dictionary to read it. I am more interesting in helping
people "get i |
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| Do you think writing
really make you learn a lot? |
| Sometimes
it does. You have to really understand how to do something yourself,
before you try to teach it to others. Writing also causes me to explore
features I may never look at unless I have to. We get set in the ways
we do things and tend to ignore new features. The pain of change sometimes
outweighs the connivence of a new feature. But when you are writing,
its your responsibility as a teacher to explore the best way to accomplish
a result. This means that you are constantly re-evaluating your techniques.
In a nutshell, this is an excellent thing because it forces you to
grow |
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| We have heard that
running forum is a difficult job. What is your experience about photoshop
café forum? |
| It can be
a very difficult thing as its very time consuming. I am very lucky
though with the cafe, and I think its very unique because I have 7
of the most awesome, tiresome, helpful and friendly Moderators on
the planet! Because of this, it has attracted very cool people to
the forum and everyone is just really nice and helpful. The jerks
don't usually hang around long because we are just not impressed with
all their baggage and we just want to get on with what we love and
thats creating art. |
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| You have won so
any competitions. What was the best moment among those competitions? |
| I think
when I won the guru award at Photoshop World in LA 2001. There were
so many great entries and I really was surprised when they called
my name. |
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| Can we expect another
great book on photoshop in near future? |
| Without
a doubt and also expect a lot more interactive training. The CD project
(www.photoshopcd.com) was a huge success and I had a blast shooting
the videos. |
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Colin
Smith is an award winning Graphic
Designer who has caused a stir in the design community with his
stunning photorealistic illustrations composed entirely in Photoshop.
He is also founder of the popular PhotoshopCAFE web resource for Photoshop users and web designers.
He has won several design contests
and awards
Colin's work has been recognized by Photoshop
User, Mac Design, Computer Arts (French edition) Dynamic Graphics
and WWW Internet Life magazines.
Colin has Authored
6 books
He is the technical Editor of "Secrets
of Award Winning Digital Artists" and "Photoshop Elements
2 FX" both by Hungry Minds.
His newest works include the interactive training cd "PhotoshopCAFE
Live" availiable for photoshopcd.com
See more of Colin's portfolio at pixeloverload.com
Colin
Smith's Art
Colin
Smiths's Book |
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