How “Meta” Are You

95* “shades” worth

Some time before during or after “flying” around atypical, two dimensional hyperspace I resolved to invest time into fully exploring Photoshop Elements' (pse9) filters and get a handle on its nearly overwhelming array of effects.

In the same spirit as Halftone Drilldown, this inquiry works toward a fuller understanding of the nuances and applicability of what's available. My own bit of “content aware”ness—I guess.

Initially there are two distinct approaches to the effort. The first is depicted by the “pse9 filter menus” chart at the left which begins a process of organizing the effect groups based on where they are within the GUI and more loosely upon their related functions. Additional design constraints included a desire for density without crowding and reading ease. It's not nearly as complicated as London or NYC subway maps ... at least until I add the subsequent effect's dialog boxes.


The second path is a strictly visual appraisal of each filter's rendered effect; the first iteration of this assembly is here at the right. The chaotic bifurcation forest of what can be achieved with each effect independently is fairly well infinite—in a mortal's coil, anyway—so layering these effects just adds an impossibly large dimension to the improbably knowable expanse of pse9's abilities. But I'll be acquiring that handle momentarily.

The top and bottom right corners of this effects palette contain the original image paired with a screenshot of pse9's foreground/background tool at the time the effects were rendered. Red (#FF0000) and green (#00FF00) were chosen to aid in revealing to what extent each effect employs them.

* There are 95 different chips in the “effects palette.”