Colony Bay TV

The Photoshop Syndrome

April 15, 2012 James Riley

Three weeks. That’s a big break in the production blog, and it
has to do with, well, production. We’re working hard to bring in the next episode by the first week in May.

On that front, there are a few cuts and transitions we’re still debating, but it’s pretty much a matter of color and music now, and it all looks pretty nice in our book.

Over the years I’ve come to warn people about what I call the “Photoshop Syndrome,” but lately I have come to believe it’s a life truth more ancient than Adobe. It works something like this:

You have that hyper-powerful, multi-paneled application up and running, with all the features you haven’t even explored just kind of simmering there in the unexplored tabs area–taunting you, mocking you, reminding you that in the next CS version they’re going to get even more complicated and you haven’t even tried them. Anyway,you’re picking a font, playing with blending layers, evaluating the white space between elements, and you have been doing the same thing for EIGHT HOURS. Let’s say it’s a web ad. You really need it to work. It’s looking good. You show it to someone.

They say, “hmmmm..”

At first you’re a tad miffed, but then you remember there were small punts you made along the way, a compromise on the images themselves, a cheat you made on the wording of the text. At first, they bothered you, but the more you looked at the same image, the more you talked yourself into the shortcut. And then your daughter saw something you totally missed, and it was so obvious, it angered you that you didn’t see it. OF COURSE.

The proper response at this point, is to do the immature thing and come up with an elaborate defense of your mistakes. This could go on for an hour or so and involve a little yelling, but eventually, you will weed through the parts of the critique that make sense and just accept the obvious and go back to the drawing board and the project keeps getting stronger and stronger.

That’s life too. Writers need editors. Actors need agents. Children need parents. We never really know what we have communicated until someone tells us how it struck them.

Of course, there are some people you just need to ignore, but within your artistic/spiritual circle, you have to be careful not to play the prophet– unless you really are one, and if I understand the good book everyone who got picked for that role didn’t want it. Speaking God’s truth gets you stoned.

For the rest of us, “there is safety in a multitude of counselors.”

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