On the Cork Board

April 3, 2025

Altered Images 2020-2021 Collection

I started using Photoshop back in the 1990s. I switched to Lightroom almost as soon as it appeared on the market. So, I was pretty familiar with the kinds of capabilities that image processing programs had. What I didn't know was how they did what they did.

When I retired from a career as a computer programmer, I decided that I needed to figure out how this digital image processing stuff worked. So, I downloaded Microsoft Visual Studio and began to learn how to do image processing using the C# programming language. I started simply. My first program read in a color image file and converted it to black-and-white. (Actually, that's more complicated than you might think.) As I progressed, I began writing programs that converted photographs into images that were obviously not straight photographs. These programs were mostly learning experiences, but I found that I liked the results of some of them. So I began to keep some of these "altered images".

I now have five altered-image programs. (See the Articles list on the main page.) At the end of each year, I take the photos that have appeared here "On the Cork Board" during the year, and I run them through each of these five programs. Then I edit the results and keep the good ones. I usually get around 20 good altered images per year, and I post them "On the Cork Board" during the year.

When I have several year's worth of altered images, I make a best-of-the-best Collection, like the Collections I make from my straight photographs. This post is a Collection of the best altered images from 2020-2021 originals.

Click any image to see it bigger.