Tags: actions

My week at the Belfast TradFest culminated in a cathedral.

Everyone who has been taking classes during the week made their way to Belfast cathedral for a communal finish. Every class played a short piece to round out their week of workshops.

The whole experience was quite lovely. At one point, I was unexepectedly moved to tears by the performance of the cello class (not a common instrument in Irish traditional music).

When I got home, I decided to send a message to Neil Martin who taught that class. It was just a quick line or two to tell him how special it was.

He responded, saying he found the whole experience of the closing concert very moving and powerful.

I was glad I sent that note of thanks.

Then, a day later, I received my own note of thanks. It wasn’t music-related. Someone I had met and chatted with at a conference last year told me that they had just watched the video of my talk, The State Of The Web. They were very moved by it. Then they took the time to send me an email to tell me. As you can imagine, I was really touched to be on the receiving end of that.

I resolved that I would do it more myself. Whether it’s a piece of music, writing, or anything else, I’m going to try to remember to pass on my appreciation more often.

That’s a good place to end, isn’t it? A nice heart-warming reminder that small acts of thoughtfulness can make a big difference to someone else’s well-being.

But there’s a corollary to that lesson. Acts of thoughtlessness will almost certainly make a very big difference to someone else’s well-being.

This is something I know in theory but struggle with in practice. I’ve experienced the regret of wishing I hadn’t acted so stupidly in my dealings with work colleagues, for example.

There’ll be some discussion happening on a topic that I might have strong feelings about, and I let those strong feelings take over my behaviour. Quite frankly, I act like a dickhead.

Sure, I can analyse it in hindsight and identify what causes this unintended behaviour, but that sounds an awful lot like excusing it. In the end, it doesn’t matter what my intentions were or what the circumstances were. It’s my actions that matter. More specifically, it’s the effect of my actions on other people that matter.

So, yeah, I am going to try to do more of those small thoughtful acts, like sending thank-you messages to people. But frankly, that’s a stretch goal. The shamefully low bar I first have to pass is to simply treat people with the respect they deserve. To paraphrase the Hypocratic oath: first, don’t be an asshole.

There’s an oft-quoted adage:

They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.

This is usually applied in the inspirational, positive sense: get out there and make people feel good! But it works equally well as a warning.

There are intentions and there are outcomes. Sometimes bad outcomes are the result of good intentions. Less often, good outcomes can be the result of bad intentions. But generally we associate the two: we expect good outcomes to come from good intentions and we expect bad outcomes to come from bad intentions.

Perhaps it’s because of this conflation that we place too much emphasis on intentions. If, for example, someone is called out for causing a bad outcome, their first response is often to defend their intentions. That’s understandable. When someone says “you have created a bad outcome”, I understand why the person on the receiving end would receive that feedback as “you intended to create this bad outcome.” Cue a non-apology that clarifies the (good) intention without acknowledging the reality of the outcome (“It was never my intention to…”).

I get it. Intentions do matter …just not as much as we give them credit for. I mean, in general, I’d prefer bad outcomes to be the inadvertent result of good intentions. But in some ways, it really doesn’t matter: a bad outcome is a bad outcome.

Anyway, all of this is just to preface something I’m going to say about myself:

I am almost certainly racist.

I don’t intend to be racist, but like I said, intentions aren’t really what matter. Outcomes are.

Note, for example, the cliché of the gormless close-minded goon who begins a sentence with “I’m not racist, but…” before going on to say something clearly racist. It’s as though the racism could be defanged by disavowing bad intent.

The same defence mechanism is used to defend racist traditions. “Oh, it’s not racist—that’s just something we’ve always done.” Again, the defence is for the intention, not the outcome. And again, outcomes matter far, far more than intentions.

I really don’t intend to be racist. But how could I not be? I grew up in a small town in Ireland where literally everyone else looked like me. By the same token, I’m also almost certainly sexist. Growing up as a cisgender male in a patriarchal society guarantees that my mind has been shaped in ways I now wish it weren’t.

Acknowledging my racism—and sexism—doesn’t mean I’m okay with it. On the contrary. It’s a source of shame. But acknowledging my racism is a necessary step to changing it.

In any case, it doesn’t really matter how I feel about any of this. This isn’t meant to be a confessional. What matters are outcomes. Outcomes aren’t really the direct result of intentions—outcomes are the direct result of actions.

Most of my actions lately have been very passive. Listening. Watching. Because my actions are passive, they are indistinguishable from silence. That’s not good. Silence can be interpreted as acquiescence, acceptance. That’s not what I intend …but my intentions don’t matter.

So, even though this isn’t about me or my voice or my intentions, and even though this is something that is so self-evident that it shouldn’t need to be said, I want to say:

Black lives matter.

I’d like to share some of my Photoshop actions with you. I use these when I want to “touch up” photographs and add some extra effects.

You can download a set of these actions.

For each of the actions, I’m going to use a photograph that started life as a 1600 x 1200 photograph shot on a Fuji Finexpix A201. I’ve reduced this down to 960 x 720 pixels to make it a more manageable download.

If you’d like to walk through all the steps of the actions described in this article, you can download this photograph and compare your results on a step by step basis.

To illustrate each action, I’ll be using 320 x 240 sized snapshots like this.

The first action is a straightforward “soft focus”.

Soft Focus

This action involves duplicating the original layer, making adjustments to that duplicate and then merging it back down. It works best on close-up portraits rather than distant landscapes.

Here’s the original picture.

The first step is duplicating this original layer.

Layer > Duplicate Layer

I’m going to blur this duplicated layer using the Gaussian Blur filter. I use a radius of about 7 pixels for a medium sized image.

The blur effect by itself is obviously too extreme so I’m going to change the style of the layer.

Layer > Layer Style > Blending Options

I set the Blend Mode to Lighten. I can then merge the duplicated layer back down with its original.

Layer > Merge Down

I now have a “soft focus” version of the original photograph. If you find the effect too extreme or not extreme enough, try using lesser or greater values for the Gaussian Blur filter.

Varying the blending options can also produce some interesting effects. I want to show you just one of those variations. I use it to create a “drawing" effect on pictures.

Drawing

The first few steps of this are identical to the “soft focus” action.

Here’s the original picture again.

Again, I duplicate this original layer.

Layer > Duplicate Layer

Now I apply the Gaussian Blur filter with a radius of about 7 pixels.

Now I change the blending options on the layer.

Layer > Layer Style > Blending Options

This time, I set the Blend Mode to Darken. I merge the duplicated layer back down with its original.

Layer > Merge Down

This action has the effect of making the lines in the photograph look hand-drawn while the areas of colour look inked-in. This pen and ink feel is reminiscent of some comics and graphic novels.

The next action is also a variation on the “soft focus”. I like to call it the “moody" action.

Moody

The idea with this action is to make a picture look more atmospheric.

I’m going to start with the same photograph. It has some strong colours like the red of the hair and the green of the jumper.

The first thing I do is reduce the saturation.

Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation

I put a figure of -70 in the Saturation field.

It’s already starting to look moodier although it’s quite flat. I increase the effect of the desaturation by increasing the brightness and decreasing the contrast.

Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast

I put a figure of 15 into the Brightness field and -15 into the Contrast field.

Now I’m going to duplicate this layer. I do this because I want to mess with the settings of the duplicated layer and blend both layers together.

Layer > Duplicate Layer

From here, it’s quite similar to the “soft focus” action. Once again, I’m going to blur this duplicated layer using the Gaussian Blur filter with a radius of about 7 pixels.

Now I’m going to blend it with the layer below.

Layer > Layer Style > Blending Options

This time, I set the Blend Mode to Overlay. I then merge the duplicated layer back down with the original.

Layer > Merge Down

That’s it. I now have a “moody" version of the original photograph.

There’s one last effect I want to show you.

Lomo

This action attempts to reproduce the kind of pictures you get from a Lomo camera. Unfortunately, part of this action is specific to the size of the picture (in this case, 960 x 720) so you’ll have to adjust it for different sizes.

I begin with the same photograph.

In many ways, this action is the opposite to the “moody" action because I want to increase the vividness of the colours. The first thing I do is up the brightness and contrast.

Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast

I put a figure of 10 into both the Brightness and the Contrast fields.

Next, I increase the saturation.

Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation

I put a figure of 15 in the Saturation field.

Now I create a new, blank layer with the Blend Mode set to Soft Light.

Layer > New Layer

I’m going to fill this layer with a gradient. I set the foreground colour to white and the background colour to black. I then choose the Gradient tool and select a blend of the white going to black (the first option) and the radial pattern (the second pattern option). I drag the cursor from the centre of the image to one of the corners.

This is the part of the action that will have to vary depending on the size of the image because the centre will be in a different pixel position.

Now I merge this layer down.

Layer > Merge Down

It’s not quite the same as using a real Lomo camera but it’s a nice effect anyway.

So there you go: one photograph with four different effects.

I hope you’ll find these actions useful. You can turn any of them into droplets by using Photoshop’s Automate option.

Automate > Create Droplet...

Have fun and don’t be afraid to play around with the settings I’ve given. You’ll be surprised at some of the great results you can get just by messing around.