9th October 2000

Why do we try to separate fun from function? That's like eating peanut butter without the jelly, seeing Bert without Ernie, or sassing off to your mother without getting slapped. Okay, perhaps the latter is a bad example. Nevertheless, have you perfected your digital picture polishing prowess? Fire up your favorite image editor and open any given (high quality) photo. Now, go through it and retouch specific areas; erase shadows, delete branches, remove eyebrows, etc. Why? Because you can send the original and edited photos to a friend; if your editing skills are finely tuned, your buddy will have a difficult time picking out the differences between each graphic. What's gained from this exercise? Well, you build practical experience, and your pal's productivity plummets.