this is a photoshop doodle, a "graphic" rather than a photograph, or "based on a true story" or "this film has been modified from the original, it has been formatted to fit your TV", you know, that sort of thing.

it's here today because nothing fresh comes to mind, and it's also the best i could do from a series of photographs i took of this crazy highway just to show what a crazy highway it is, none of which really turned out at all, and i have learned over the years when something is plain awful in colour to try black and white. it was mid-day and the light wasn't all that good, but much more than that, although this is the almost completely untravelled piilani highway between kula and nuu (i have no idea what nuu is but apparently i've been there), the highway is not only oddly distorted by volcanic subsidence, it’s also full of hills and while only occasionally used, it is used and it’s still unnerving to stand in the middle of it and take pictures as the locals who are just about the only ones who use this road know it well and tend to travel it at fantastically high speeds. I’d love to die in Hawaii, but not for at least another half-century.

Crudely done, the brushwork on the yellow line (I just used the history brush, didn’t even bother with layers) is almost acceptable at the resolution I used here. The b&w portion, which is not really b&w at all, well I am kinda pleased with that, I’ll probably use it again more carefully for a photograph that’s actually worth it and properly with layers and masks and such.

I use the history brush in Photoshop a lot when I’m sketching, it’s a quick and dirty way to try out things. Since, when I’m doing serious editing, I use proper layer masks I always get all twisted timeline-wise with the history brush. It’s like it’s the opposite of using layer masks, then it isn’t, but then it is again, and sometimes my head gets so spun ‘round I just head off to sleep. Really, I just wish I could do all the funky stuff with the camera alone. And often I do, last post, the solstice one, save for the very top image all were just resized, and in the case of the top i just used a very slight reduction of the cyan in the red option of selective colour to give the clouds just a hint more ruddy, something I borrowed from portrait editing, first time I’ve tried it not on a face.

And here’s where once again I split my audience. Those of you who don’t know photoshop haven’t a clue what I’m talking about, and those who do are right now rolling their eyes and saying to themselves, “he doesn’t know photoshop worth beans.” Except that I sort of do, which tends to highlight all the ways I do not.

I am not a polymath, but I play one on tv.