Maeda's SIMPLICITY

Gaussian Blurs and Snowfall

Nature selects "Gaussian Blur" from her menu.

In Adobe Photoshop there is an often-used tool in the Filter menu called "Gaussian Blur." Just above this filter are two other filters "Blur" and "Blur More." I never choose either of these vague options for my blurring needs, and always go to the source: "Gaussian Blur." However I think it is overkill to label the feature "Gaussian Blur" as I don't think that Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855) is going to come back from the dead to sue Adobe for using his name. Super-smart folks in the old days way way way way way way way before the dotcom era didn't care for money (or lawyers) and just did it for the thrill of thinking. I believe that the name "Gaussian Blur" is important to distinguish the blur that Photoshop performs from a "box blur" or other blurs that exist in the image processing toolbox. But then I wonder why there isn't a "Box Blur" option in the menu? That's like an ice cream store that sells only Strawberry ice cream. One would think that for such an expressive tool like Adobe Photoshop, (if you aren't me) you'd want more features than you could imagine.

Yesterday at the Media Lab's SIMPLICITY program we had a visit from the Product Manager for Apple's Shake and Motion products. Her mission was to make Apple's professional tools as powerful as possible—which translates to being as complex as possible. The professional market is indeed driven by complexity as a desirable feature from a marketing perspective. Only problem is that even the msot skilled professionals are getting fed up with all the thick manuals they have to read (which the manufacturers try to hide in their CD-ROMs or 75Mb 'readme' files now), all the bugs they have to deal with because the complex software introduces considerably more complex errant behaviors, and all the training courses and bboards that have to be constantly trawled for insights that are missing in any of the manufacturers' public documentation.

What we need is a "blur" feature to apply to software tools that can help us see the forest for the trees. We may need to "blur more" such that we can see the mountains for the forest. Snow falling on a terrain has this effect of blurring every detail of an environment such that only the most basic topography of an area remains.

One of the best tricks for improving a page or screen layout is to squint your eyes and look at your piece. Suddenly you can see how all the elements are out of balance in size relationships, overall contrast, and priority of relevance. In essence the squint of our eyes is the blur that we use to simplify what we see, in order to adjust an outcome for greater efficacy.

Big picture thinking acquired with just a prolonged squint? Maybe eyeglass companies might be out of business in the future if this technique ever catches on ...

Posted by maeda at January 29, 2005 10:51 AM