Pixelady vs. Pixelady: Different Ways To Do The Same Thing in Photoshop

Greetings everyone. It’s Deb here with a little teaser for our upcoming, intermittent series of blog posts called Pixelady vs. Pixelady. Just because we work together doesn’t mean we always do things the same way. Photoshop is a great case in point because there are so many ways to accomplish the same task. Of course, each of us thinks our way is better, which can be kind of fun for our Photoshop Elements students . . . NOT!

Spy vs. Spy

Pixelady vs. Pixelady is our parody of a comic called Spy vs. Spy. In case you’re too young to remember Mad Magazine (or weren’t a fan), here’s a little primer. In 1961, Mad Magazine premiered the comic duo in issue #60. Spy vs. Spy was a never-ending battle between a pointy-nosed black spy and a pointy-nosed white spy. Remember, this was the height of the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union. Spies were everywhere. Or so we were told. Here’s the first Spy vs. Spy drawn by Antonio Prohias:

 

In the early days, the battles ended in a draw. Later the victories were split between the white spy and the black spy. In case you’re wondering, the dots and dashes are Morse code, and it says “By Prohias.” 

Pixelady vs. Pixelady

You might be wondering why Kris, who learned Photoshop from Deb, would do things differently.  Well, it goes back to old dogs and new tricks. Deb is the old dog. She started using Photoshop with version 3.  Not Photoshop Creative Cloud (CC) 3, not Photoshop Creative Studio (CS) 3, not even Photoshop Elements (PSE) 3.  Plain ol’ Adobe Photoshop 3 from 1994!  Deb started teaching Photoshop in adult education after Photoshop Elements debuted in 2001. Like most things, computer programs evolve over the years. New things are added, old things are taken away. Old dogs tend to stick with old ways.  When we started teaching Photoshop Elements online, every so often Kris, or even a student, would ask, “Why don’t you do it this way?” Sometimes the old dog learns, sometimes she doesn’t. Come back next week for our first installment of Pixelady vs. Pixelady to see what we mean. And you’ll learn some interesting ways to do things in Photoshop while you’re at it.