A major part of blogging is designing your blog to appeal to its readers. Adding images to your theme and blog posts makes a blog a lot less boring . Although this is my first blog, I have experience editing images with Adobe Photoshop. I took a graphic design class my sophomore year in high school where we had multiple assignments learning the functions of photoshop. I learned there was so many things one can do to a photo. Prior to the class I thought Photoshop was used for simply cropping pictures and editing pictures to be funny, but after I realized that so much can be done to a picture and photoshopping pictures is really a craft that takes time and skill. Photoshop was really user friendly and after some instruction, I think anyone can be able to use the program efficiently. Unlike Photoshop, I feel WordPress is actually harder to learn as a whole. I have yet to edit images extensively in WordPress but I look forward to learning how to in order to improve my blog. As I mentioned earlier , I thought applications like Photoshop were used simply for funny pictures and memes on the Internet. Gabrielle Coleman mentions in ” Phreaks, Hackers, and Trolls” the website 4chan which is a forum site where users comment and discuss images. She describes these images as being “esoteric, audacious, creative, humorous , Heavily Photoshopped, and often very grotesque or pornographic” (pg 110). Because of sites like 4chan , I feel like editing images and Photoshop will always be linked to humor and trolling, when really some people make a living off photo editing. Editors for magazines use photo editing softwares to fix magazine covers and photoshoots. Music artists use photo editing to design their album covers as well.
The original photo used for Chance The Rapper’s mixtape “Acid Rap”
The Acid Rap Cover, edited from the original picture.
I got this image from the Adobe Support page.
Alex's Blog 
The images you used are a great example of creating something entirely original in Photoshop. The trolls the Coleman refers to would use Photoshop for images a little more humor based and with different intentions than just an aesthetically pleasing creation. I also learned how to use Photoshop while taking a class. The possibilities within Photoshop are limitless. However, its use has gained a reputation and connection to the trolls of the internet. Some people think of magazine covers when they hear Photoshop, but I think of all the memes on the internet people are making everyday.
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Also, try breaking up your article with the images next time!
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