Phun with Photoshop

I've never taken an actual class in Photoshop, but I was introduced to it when I joined the Purdue Engineering Magazine production staff. When I saw a friend cut off Bill Gates' head and place it into Darth Vadar's helmet (creating "Bilth Gater") for an article about interns at Microsoft, I was hooked. I love playing around in Photoshop, and can't help but crack myself up with what this software can do. Photoshop can be overwhelming for new users, but you can also produce some amazing effects using only a few tools. This page is home to some projects and general silliness, all derived from Photoshop.

Photoshop is here to POMP YOO OP The most cliched use of Photoshop, head switching, is still worth a few good chuckles.

I created this graphic for a Purdue Engineering Magazine article about the role of technology in sports. Aside from PEM's surprising sponsorship of the French Open, I also managed to sneak a few faces into the crowd... And hey, is that Elton John watching the net? (no image manipulation there)

This was a made-to-order graphic for the Project GO@LS newsletter. All of those smiling mugs are the full time GO@LS members for 2000-01.

This is my best friend Krissy and me, although we didn't meet each other until college. We both burst out laughing and said "Look, it's us!" when we saw the card in Walmart. As a graduation present, I altered reality in Photoshop and framed the result. The originals:

This is the back CD cover for a series of mixed CDs I burned for my brother. I took the photo myself, so you can probably figure out I wasn't on a halfpipe at the time...

I helped create a basic Photoshop tutorial for a project in a technical writing class at Purdue. We led the class through the generation of this graphic, which introduced most of the basic tools, including the magic wand, rubber stamp, layer arrangement and opacity, filters, cutting and pasting inside, resizing, and text manipulation. Basically we wanted to show that you can produce some nice graphics without a whole lot of experience with the software.

There have been many stories about abducted lawn gnomes and plastic snowmen who then take a tour of the world, with photos of the hostage in exotic places or with famous people showing up in the mailbox of its former home. No one has bothered to steal my Strawberry Shortcake garbage can from when I was a kid, but a little Photoshop magic has put it into a few interesting places...

Hey, Barry Sanders stole my trash can!	Now who's the pop culture icon in this picture?	Even Dali had an appreciation for SS and her gang...
		Dance your cares away Worry's for another day Let the music play Down at Fraggle Rock Need I say more?
What, you thought she was all pink aprons and frilly hats?? This chick is hardcore military material!!

This was the main graphic from my very first webpage. It's a bit too gothic and not really reflective of my personality, but interesting nonetheless...

This was the next splash graphic, which was
more fitting and lasted much longer.