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Artfully distorting your graphics
with effects and filters can rarely be the
foundation of your design, but is often very
important at the finishing stages. Learn the
principles behind these transformations, how to
choose the right one, and how to know when to
abstain.
Today, probably the hottest graphic software
titles on the market are various add-ons and
plug-ins, effects and filters, applets and
gadgets, offering all imaginable sorts of
graphic stunts and distortion feats. Sure, if
the booming graphics market had not required
this "cool stuff" over anything else,
programmers would not spend so much time
developing image distortion utilities. Legions
of graphic neophytes are enthusiastically
sharing tons of graphic recipes, and a program
is considered obsolete if it cannot do one-click
drop shadows and bevelled buttons.
The title
of the article implies that all effects
involve some sort of distortion,
deterioration of the source image. This is
indeed the case, although the "distortion"
meant here doesn't imply making your image
"worse" in an aesthetic sense, but only some
degree of loss, or corruption, of the
original image's information (Web designers
know that, if the source is a photo or
another complex graphic, applying an effect
in many cases reduces the file size of the
image). This "degradation," if tastefully
done, can be more pleasing to human
perception than strictly regular forms or
perfectly authentic photos. And you may
have noticed that the motives of degradation
and abandon are pretty modish in modern
design.
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