Photoshop Revisited...

It was rather unexpected, when i was asked by one of my friends to work upon Photoshop, the tool i learned during the second semester of my B.Tech. Its been 3 years, and i never used Photoshop during this time for more than just cropping a few images or using the brightness and contrast features.

She asked me to work upon a web template and try for some better color combinations. The very first thought that came to me was, "Oh God !! Aaj to gaye". I am sure, boys can imagine the situation when a beautiful female friend of yours ask for a favor and you are unsure of doing the task as expected.

But, i held my nerves, and said "Ok, i will see to that" in as much confidence as i can at that time. So, the task of the day was to design a perfect web template to impress a 'beauty with the brains'. I started installing Photoshop on my machine, still unsure of what would i do when i will struggle with the varied features of Photoshop.

Finally, i opened the file in photoshop. The page opened with a number of dark shaded frames, some text on the page , a few pics here and there, colourful lines and margins drawn. As a first reaction, my hand moved away from the mouse like a shot, as i have touched some hot plate on a boiling water can. "What the hell is this....where should i start from......where are the options to edit the image.....what are all these pop up windows for??....bla bla bla..." were the questions that formed a whirlpool in my mind in less than a second, until i came across the only familiar thing, and that was the window showing the various layers with some marking on each layer. I remembered the concept of layers, but that was not the only thing that would help when something has to been done with colours, textures, patterns and styles.

My mind was still under the covers, when i decided to ping her ask for the very first doubt in my mind which was "Where to find the option for changing the color of a particular region?" It was better to ask it now than to avoid replying to her charming ping "hey happy..how r u ?" later in the evening. I was still thinking for some other option, when i heard a ding dong. Oh! it was my messenger window with a sound that said "Are you able to make some changes..?"
Now, that was the question i least expected,after just 5 minutes of task allocation. That was the first moment when i cursed myself for not being a perfectionist on Photoshop. "Ah!! now what should be the reply...".

My mind still engaged, the fingers took a step forward and typed "Well, i am not able to find the option to change the color of a selected region". It was after i had typed the message, i realized that i could have asked that in a different way. There was a long pause while a hundred of thoughts kept creeping in my mind, "what is she thinking..??......Its ok happy, not a problem, i will do it myself......Will, she explain me, how to get this option..?? " when there was a sound again, and the messenger window had the answer to all my innocent thoughts.

Finally, the nerves settled, the blood flow unaccelerated as she replied with a proper answer explaining each step. I tried my first touch and wow..!!, it worked. Finally, i saw something new on the page, something that i tried and visualized. Later she slept , perhaps, with some expectations set with me. But this time, i found myself much more confident and ready for the goal. I spent around 5-6 hours that day, engrossed in filters, textures, tranfomations, swatches, styles, images, colour bucket, shapes, sizes, borders, layers etc etc. and came up with 4 new templates later in the evening. I was totally exhausted, my eyes red with wild rays shooting out of the computer monitor. But, my satisfaction weighed much more than my heavy head. It was the time to mail her all the templates with a sweet message and wait for a reply.

I will not remember most of the things as i move on, perhaps even today, i do not remember all that i have learned till date. But, the revision of this tool has left an ever lasting impression on my mind. Do you think, i revised something and learned something not for me, but for someone else? Well, as an audience you can only see what is being played on the stage and not behind the curtains... ;)