Tag Archives: Photoshop

Of Maps and Memes: A Bit of Cartographic Fun

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Co-Authored by Zhaneille Green

We use maps to communicate all the time. Historically, they have been used to navigate the world and to stand as visual, physical manifestations of defined spaces and places. What do you think of when we say “map”: a topographic map1 a transportation map2 or a city map3?

  • Image 1. Map of the Isle of Man. Eric Gaba (Sting – fr:Sting), CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
  • Image 2. Trans-African Highway Map. I, Rexparry sydney, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
  • Image 3. Map of the Vatican City. Thomas Römer/OpenStreetMap data, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

You can use maps to represent just about anything you want to say, far beyond these typical examples. We wrote this blog to invite you to have a little cartographic fun of your own.

If you’re on any kind of social media, you’ve probably seen maps like the one below, highlighting anything from each state’s favorite kind of candy to what the continental US would look like if all of the states’ borders were drawn along rivers and mountain ranges. People definitely seem to enjoy sharing these maps, curious to see what grocery store most people shop at in their home state, or laughing about California’s lack of popularity with the states in the surrounding area.

Map of most popular halloween candy in each US state. View the interactive version on candystore.com

Try your hand at creating your own silly map by using our programs in the Scholarly Commons. Start a war by creating a map that ranks the Southern states with the best barbecue using Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator, or explore a personal hobby like creating a map of all the creatures Sam & Dean Winchester met through the 15 seasons of Supernatural using ArcGIS.

If you’re feeling a bit more serious, don’t fret! Even if these meme-like maps aren’t portraying the most critical information, they do demonstrate how maps can be a great tool for data visualization. In many ways, location can make data feel more personal, because we all have personal connections to place. Admit it: the first thing you checked on the favorite candy map was your home state. Maps also tend to be more visually engaging than a simple table with, for example, states in one column and favorite animal in the other.

Using geotagging data, each dot represents where a photo was taken: blue for locals, red for tourists, and yellow for unknown. Locals and Tourists #1 (GTWA #2): London. Erica Fischer, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Flickr.

Regardless of what you want to map, the Scholarly Commons has the tools to help bring your vision to life. Learn about software access on our website, and check out these LinkedIn Learning resources for an introduction to ArcGIS Online or Photoshop, which are available with University of Illinois login credentials. If you need more assistance, feel free to ask us questions. Go forth and meme!

Choosing GIMP as a Photoshop Alternative

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The GIMP logo.

Image manipulation is a handy skill, but sinking time and money into Adobe Photoshop may not be an option for some people. If you’re looking for an alternative to Photoshop, GIMP is a great bet. Available for almost every operating system, GIMP is open source and free with lots of customization and third party plugin options.

One of the major aspects you lose when moving from Photoshop to GIMP is the loss of a major community and widespread knowledge of the software. While GIMP has its dedicated loyalists and a staff, they lack the same kind of institutional power that Adobe has to answer questions, fix bugs, and provide support. While LinkedIn Learning does provide tutorials on GIMP, there are fewer overall resources for tutorials and help than Photoshop.

That being said, GIMP can still be a more powerful tool than Photoshop, especially if you have a programming background (or can convince someone else to do some programming for you). Theoretically, you could add or subtract any features that you so choose by changing the GIMP source code, and you are free to distribute a version of GIMP with those changes to whomever you choose.

There are a number of pros/cons for choosing GIMP over Photoshop, so here’s a handy list.

GIMP Pros:

  • Free
  • Highly customizable and flexible (with coding expertise)
  • Motivated user community run by volunteers
  • High usability
  • Easier to contact leadership regarding issues

GIMP Cons:

  • Less recognized
  • Changes are more slowly implemented
  • No promise that the software will always be maintained in perpetuity

Of course, there are more pros and cons to using GIMP, but this will give you a basic idea of the pros and cons of switching over to this open-source software.

For more information on GIMP, you can check out the GIMP Wiki, which is maintained by GIMP developers, or The GTK+ Project, which is a toolkit for the creation of graphical user interfaces (GUI). GIMP also provides a series of Tutorials.