Reality Is In The Eye Of The Beholder

I’ve almost caught up with my responsbilities. In the meantime, I wanted to share something I came across in one of those moments I should have been working.

There’s an artist who uses Photoshop and Illustrator to create as realistic as possible scenes. Some of his earlier works, while very good, still barely look digitial. His latest work however blows me away. If you know anything about computers and Photoshop, you’ll find the following information on the piece impressive. Note in particular that he spent almost 2,000 hours creating the image.

• The image size is 40 inches by 120 inches.
• The flattened file weighs in at 1.7 Gigabytes.
• It took eleven months (close to 2,000 hours) to create.
• The painting is comprised of close to fifty individual Photoshop files.
• Taking a cumulative total of all the files, the overall image contains over 15,000 layers.
• Over 500 alpha channels were used for various effects.
• Over 250,000 paths make up the multitude of shapes throughout the scene.

How long will it be before pictures aren’t trustworthy? We’re already there in some regards but it’s only going to get easier as technology improves. It won’t surprise me when digital camera makers introduce “assurance” technology so that images off the camera can be verified as authentic.