As I have mentioned in other posts, I have been working at understanding Photoshop well enough to create my own memes, to touch up photos new and old, and to generally be able to utilize most of the power it provides to those patient enough to work on the skills. This is my latest, though the overlay of Trump’s fugliness on what is likely a painting of Marie Antoinette I stole from the Intertubes. I actually had a piece I did with Donald’s face on Marie, but I would have had to pull off some kind of mighty effort to have a plate and raised hand available to showcase to CORONA virus.
This story is disturbing. President Trump and nearly every one of the Republicans in Congress have failed to protect the American public from both this virus and from the economic effects of efforts to mitigate its destructiveness. That they will rush to vaccinate themselves before essential workers disgusts and appalls me. It doesn’t, however, surprise me. The Republican party is stuffed to the gills with pompous preeners who care little for the people they purport to represent. I suspect quite a few Democrats, especially the old guard, have similar propensities. We need to elect people who care about their constituents.
Most of us know by now that much of the folklore surrounding our nation’s first president is apocryphal, but I suppose there’s some value in hyping those qualities we consider good and valuable. Surely, although it is no doubt untrue, the thought that our preeminent Founding Father was an upstanding, decent, and honest person is useful for setting expectations.
Of course, whatever those expectations had been, they’ve now been essentially torched by the deeply flawed person who has been cosplaying as our president for nearly four years. Donald John Trump is a classless, phony buffoon. That he managed to con tens of millions of people into believing he either cared for them and their lives, or that he was competent enough to actually do anything that would materially improve their lives, does nothing to rehabilitate his reputation as the most dishonest person to ever “serve” in that office.
This graphic was a simple observation I committed to Photoshop as I was learning how to select portions of photos to layer on top of another photo. Nothing spectacular; just a minor statement of reality.
I have mentioned before that I have a lot of Photoshop work I’ve yet to share, though I have shared them on Facebook and Twitter; just not here on my blog. So, I thought I would share these two related images. They were, of course, inspired by the Grifty-Family-In-Chief’s professionalism and ability to avoid the appearance of impropriety in their daily lives in the White House and as the Executive function of the United States of America.
Both of these photos were originally used by these two criminals to push products for the Goya label. Frankly, I don’t even remember why (and I’m too lazy and pressed for time to research it right now; maybe I’ll come back to it) but I think it had something to do with the owner or CEO’s support of Trump.
Nothing says you truly love your country quite like working overtime to destroy every shred of cooperation and comity, essentially implementing the Iraqi policy following their withdrawal from Kuwait in 1991.
This is a simple meme I put together with Photoshop recently. Each day that passes since the election, Trump and his administration prove repeatedly how little they care for the nation they pretend to serve.
I’ve not seen anything even slightly similar to what’s going on, even as I compose this post. Trump is anything but a patriot; in fact, I would offer he’s engaging in sedition, if not treason. He’s certainly acting like a domestic terrorist.
Can’t wait ’til he’s gone. He is the absolute worst president in the history of the United States. Hands down!
In my last couple of years in High School I took a lot of photography classes. Back then (this was in 1964 – 1966) there was no such thing as digital photos. Everything was film and darkroom work. I remember enjoying taking pictures at football games, using Kodak Tri-X 400 black & white negative film.
I had to take it into the darkroom and develop both the film and then use the negatives obtained from the film strip to project onto photographic paper, which we then developed ourselves in the darkroom. It involved a lot of banging around in the dark, getting used to working by dim red light, and lots of chemicals to develop, set, and finish the work.
I’ve long enjoyed photography and still enjoy using tools like Photoshop to tweak and improve photos; sometimes to create political memes from them as well. I recently started using the magnification app that came with my iPhone XR and I’ve realized I can produce some interesting photos by zooming way in on subjects that have intricate or visually remarkable patterns.
Several of the ones I’m publishing here should be fairly easily recognizable to most people. At least one of them requires a bit of engineering knowledge and, perhaps, familiarity with space hardware. A couple of them should be easy to discern. Two of them relate to cooking in one way or another. What do you see?
As I’ve noted before, I’m continuously improving my Photoshop skills, learning how tools I’ve not used before can improve my efforts, as well as improving on techniques I’ve learned as I’ve attempted to create the visions I imagine. Here’s one I did regarding the protests in Michigan and a tweet that made light of the protestors.
Some White Boys Cosplaying as Patriots (which they’re decidedly NOT!)
I think I’ve mentioned before I am experimenting with, and getting better and better at, using Photoshop . . . mostly for creating political commentary, though with other applications in mind as well. I did a fair amount of work 12 – 15 years ago with Fireworks, a product of Macromedia (since acquired by Adobe, creators of PS) related to Dreamweaver and Flash.
Fireworks was quite similar to PS, so much of what I learned back then was applicable when I started using PS. However, the latter is far more feature-packed and useful, IMO.
Here is my latest, quite simple creation, inspired by a tweet, which I will also share. First, the tweet.
BREAKING: Malaria Antoinnette donates her tennis pavilion to the scientific community, in order to expedite a Coronavirus cure. Nah, I’m just kidding. She doesn’t give a shit.
Here’s the graphic. I first posted this on Twitter and Facebook with the face from a photo and without a filter. After I looked at it later on, when some had commented on my posts, I realized it would likely look a bit better if I used an artistic filter, so I applied one with brush strokes. I do think it blends a bit better this way. What do you think?
I’m glad we decided to purchase Photoshop. I’ve been playing with it and sometimes I even get a little serious, spending some time learning how to use a tool I’m unfamiliar with. This wasn’t one of those times, though being able to select a small part of one photo and layering onto another requires a bit of patience and a reasonably steady hand. The latter I find difficult at times, as I have inherited essential (or familial) tremors from my mother, and there are times when I have a great deal of difficulty pointing and clicking in the right place. When I was back at Rocketdyne (2015 – 2017) there were times when I couldn’t easily log onto my computer in the morning because me hands were shaking so bad. At any rate, this here should be clear to anyone who knows a little Russian history and something about hand tools.
If you’ve seen one Russian, you’ve seen ’em all
PS – I’m not posting this for any reason other than I created it, it’s been shared on FB and Twitter, and I just want to have it somewhere that doesn’t disappear essentially forever. There’s nothing special about it, other than that it marks another bit of practice I had using Photoshop.
The Simi Valley Democratic Club—of which I am a member, as well as the duly elected Corresponding Secretary and Chair of the Social Media Committee—had its 3rd annual Independence Day picnic this past Saturday. It is held in conjunction with our brothers and sisters in the Moorpark Democratic Club and we alternate between their City’s locations and ours. We’re right next to each other IRL.
As Corresponding Secretary, my duties range from publishing (which means writing, editing, and finding—or creating—graphics for) the club’s monthly newsletter, posting to our Facebook page and group, conducting meetings of the Social Media Committee, and a few other ancillary activities.
One of those ancillary activities is taking pictures at events I attend and, in the case of this picnic, putting together one or more useful posts for our FB page/group. Since I had taken a picture of all the elected officials who had addressed us (save for State Senator Henry Stern, who showed up late enough that I had already taken my 15-year-old, very bored, daughter home and, therefore, couldn’t take a photo) I decided to work on my Photoshop selection and layering skills. This is the result, which I posted to our page/group.
With the exception of the aforementioned State Senator (who I ghosted into the shot), these are the officials who joined us for a meal of hot dogs, chips, macaroni salad, and soft drinks/lemonade/iced tea. From left to right, they are:
I can’t take credit for this concept, but I can take credit for executing it in my ongoing quest to get better and better at Photoshop. I think I saw something like this on Twitter and I wasn’t happy with how it had been done, so I thought I would take a crack at it myself.
This is only two layers, but it took a bit of work to get Air Force One selected cleanly enough to delete everything else that was in the picture with it. That’s what takes the most patience at this point; selecting what stays and what gets removed when layering a series of photos.
Frankly, I wouldn’t wish this on the crew or staff along for the trip, but if Trump was on it alone, this represents one of many scenarios I’d love to see. A massive aneurysm is another. My favorite, however, will be arrest, trial, conviction, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, and imprisonment. That would be ideal.
Systems Savvy 