Calvin’s Dad explains the history of color

The next time I teach Photoshop class, I’m somehow going to work this Calvin & Hobbes comic into the explanation of how to add color to a black & white photo.

I remember thinking the exact same thing when I was a little kid. My childlike logic deduced that black and white photos were really old, therefore I should ask the oldest person I could find about them. I went to my grandma and asked her what it was like living in black and white times. I got a very grandma-ish answer about how it wasn’t really black and white back then.

Now, my adult logic dictates that since photos & TV both started off as black & white and eventually became color, holograms must also start off as black & white. I suppose that science fiction works aren’t too far off the mark when they have a mono-chromatic hologram, like Cortana in Halo.

Popped into my head from out of nowhere a few days ago and I just had to make it. Figured out the Futura Condensed Extra Bold is the font of the original Smokey the Bear poster by running it through WhatTheFont. Took a headshot of ol’ Smokey into Photoshop, reduced it down to about 20 pixels tall and then blew it back up using “nearest neighbor” scaling to retain the pixelation. Took the resulting image into Illustrator and did a quick live-trace so that it’s easily scalable. Printed a few poster-size versions to hang in the classrooms at work.

I could probably do a better job if I had some of this stuff: Make My Logo Bigger Cream. It’s a marketing managers dream come true.

A sarcastic designer fed up with dictations from upper management? Nahhhh, that never happens.

And on a side note…
Just noticed that Google Ads is serving up an ad for the new Star Wars: Clone Wars cartoon that’s going to air on Cartoon Network. That’s freakin’ awesome; I’m pimping for Star Wars & Cartoon Network.