Bryce, Photoshop, Thorn in My Side
(originally ranted in 1997)

Okay, I gotta get this one out. In fact, the only reason I even created this page was so I could gripe about this. As it turns out, this isn't my only whine, so the page goes on.

MetaCreations brought something wonderful to the drawing board for all us zany artists. It's called Bryce, and it is a stunning program. Now, I have more than one complaint about MetaCreations, but regardless of whether or not MC is a good company, Bryce is a great program. I use it religiously, and well. I am perfectly happy with my work, and don't feel that it needs to be pumped up, filtered, and shot through 64 lenses in Photoshop to look good. It's good on its own. And if it isn't, Photoshop won't help.

You see, I wander the Net for endless hours looking at the artwork of Bryce masters. I love to do so. There are so many good artists out there, and they are an inspiration. They silently encourage me to not throw this stinkin' machine out the window after Bryce crashes for the 400th time per night. But there is an evil force lurking out there in the shadows: the Brycer who destroys their image in Photoshop.

I am sick and tired of people taking a pure Bryce image and running it through a virtual Photoshop obstacle course to get some other effect. Mind you, I am not talking about people who enhance their image in Photoshop. I understand that things need to be sharpened, smoothed, framed, text-ified, and other such minor fixes. I'm talking about people who alter a Bryce to the point of it being unrecognizable as a Bryce. I'm a purist. What can I say?

This is not to say I'm a Bryce master. Not a chance. But if I do an image, what you see is what I did. Someone else's filter didn't do it for me. It's mine. Of course, I'm probably just be saying this because I'm bitter that I don't have Photoshop. But that's my gripe. Unfiltered, unaltered, sans texture explorer.