Well, I figure since I've already wrote a bit of advice to the techies in my prior post on  the Paper to PC Concept, I figure I write a bit of advice to artists that might be  intimidated to look at the programming side of things, as far as graphics go. (Don't worry techies, I have a paragraph for you too - Keep reading!)

 I think that veteran artists know of this already, but this is probably geared moreso for the absolute newbies, novices and intermediates:  Code and numbers can be your friend. 

 I know I know, you don't want to touch it.  You don't even want to look at it. That's the  programmers job, right?  All you wanna do is use the software, and don't want to delve into  how it was made, and all the nitty gritty facts.  Just design, colors and tools are all you  need to make these digital masterpieces a reality!  Well, how about all those days when you  use a particular tool, and then think, "Gee, if only this nifty art program had another  shortcut to it so I didn't have to (FILL IN THE BLANK WITH YOUR DESIRED ART ACTION) over and  over again!  As a few examples, this type of "desired art action" can range from resizing an image, to positioning duplicates of your creation in an animation.  Can you see now how useful it would be to spend a little time to get to know how to write a little script that would allow these possibly tedious actions to occur?  Those artists who already have the techy know how and do heavy Adobe art stuff know I'm mainly referring to Photoshop.  The Actions tool in Photoshop is probably one of the easiest ways users can make a "macro" (click on link for definition) in a program to create a user shortcut.  Simply put, you setup a "recording" of a set of actions that you are doing when you are working with the program, and Photoshop will replicate these actions and store them in a little procedure for you to come back later to if you need to do it again.  How to create these photoshop actions can be found at THIS TUTORIAL.

 This can be good advice to techies too that don't want to keep continuing to touch the programming side of things.  When you use a program, such as Photoshop, you just want to touch the tools for the most part. Who wants to continue writing algorithms when it's "Artsy Time?" Well, fortunately for you, most programs have components that allow you to go beyond  the high level interface.  You can make the programs do things that are totally beyond what the user interface allows you to do! Most times the developers of a particular graphics program know that some users like to hack the interface to their liking, so they create a component within that allows you to execute any code you write.  The Photoshop Action ability I wrote about above is an example, but other programs allow you to delve even deeper.  A good example is the Maya program.  This 3D program allows you to create actual scripts   that can also have the same usage as an "action," but also can make actual extra menus in the program for a little sub interface!  Maya allows users to program using MEL (Maya Embedded Language).   It's a simple script language, but Maya itself is programmed using the C language, and also allows users to integrate MEL Script with C language programming, therefore users that know C can actually get as deep as they desire with customization of the program! 

 The programs are designed to make it easy on the average user that doesn't want to know about the numbers and algorithmic stuff.  So you can make creations that are absolutely breathtaking without knowing the techy stuff. But sometimes knowing that side of things makes it easier in the long run for you to make those artistic dreams a reality.  Of course I'm just touching the tip of the iceberg when it comes to talking about the possibilities of going to the Tech Side.  Can I say the sky's the limit? Well, almost.  You are restricted from taking over certain tools and sub applications in programs, but at least you have the ability to create nifty shortcuts, and even creations that are beyond what the default tools let you do!

-SB

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