Photoshop Request Threads

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About

Photoshop Request Threads refer to online forum discussions in which members with little experience in using image-editing software, such as Photoshop, ask other members to digitally manipulate an image in a particular way. Depending on the culture of each community, such request may be met by genuine assistance or tongue-in-cheek responses from trolls.

Origin

Requests for hands-on assistance with Adobe's image-editing software have been seen on the Usenet newsgroup alt.graphics.photoshop^[3] as early as 1999, though perhaps due to the professional nature of the group, many early inquiries were met with animosity and discouraging responses from those who regarded their requests as demanding free labor.^[1] However, by 2000, some requests were being honored^[2] as long as there was some form of payment.

Spread

Beginning in January 2002, photoshop requests became a recurring topic on car enthusiast message boards including VW Vortex^[4], Prelude Online^[5] and DTM Power^[6], where members would ask more skilled peers to digitally enhance or manipulate images of their cars with new logos or different rims. Later that year, a member of the Something Awful forum posted a chat log^[7] of someone making a request in the #photoshop IRC channel. Between 2003 and 2006, photoshop requests continued to take a stronghold on car enthusiast message boards, mostly for customization of body and exteriors, such as changing the paint color^[8]^[9] (shown below) as well as adding decals^[10] and accessories.^[10]^[11]^[12]^[13] Meanwhile, similar photoshop requests outside the motor culture began to thrive on popular forums like Ars Technica^[14], General Mayhem,^[15] Pearl Drummers^[16], DVD Talk^[17] and AnandTech.^[18]

In August 2008, a Facepunch forums member submitted a request seeking help with cleaning up a photo of him as a young child with his father. However, the request quickly became derailed by trolls on the site who responded to the thread with irrelevant photoshopped images, such as incorporating Pedobear or swapping the OP's face with his father’s. Though the thread was never archived, on August 29th, 2008, a screenshot containing a number of the responses was uploaded to Flickr.^[19] In April 2010, another Facepunch forums member attempted to recreate the thread.^[20]

The earliest archived 4chan photoshop request thread was posted to /jp/ (Otaku Culture) on May 13th, 2008^[21], asking other posters to photoshop a picture of a dog jumping through hoops. More serious requests began to appear on Photoshop-specific message boards like PhotoshopGurus^[23] as well as Tumblr with the "photoshop request" tag.^[24] On March 1st, 2011, Redditor cannedpasta launched the subreddit /r/PicRequests,^[25] allowing a forum for both free work as well as paid requests. As of July 2013, it has amassed more than 16,000 subscribers. In February 2012, PhotoshopRequest.com^[22] was created offering free work done by a group of college design students who wanted to hone their Photoshop skills. On February 23rd, 2015, the /r/PhotoshopTrolls^[37] subreddit was launched for compilations of prank images from photoshop request threads.

Can You Please Photoshop The Sun Between My Fingers?

In December 2011, a photo depicting a failed forced perspective with a man holding up his fingers attempting to crush a setting sun much lower than his hand was shared on the /r/Funny subreddit. Following this, a number of request threads titled Can You Please Photoshop The Sun Between My Fingers? appeared on 4chan and Tumblr, resulting in dozens of images photoshopping anything but the sun between the man's fingers.

In China: Weibo Trolls

On May 21st, 2013, Buzzfeed^[26] reported on a number of Photoshop trolls found on Chinese message boards and the microblogging site Weibo who respond to open requests for image alterations by adjusting them in an unexpected manner. The images were reposted to The Chive^[27] the following day. A week later, Kotaku^[28] found additional examples that had been collected by PSyuan^[29], a Chinese site created in February 2012 to highlight these humorously photoshopped images. In China, these requests are made on sites like Yxdown^[31] and Weibo using "大神PS "^[30] (Photoshop masters please help), which later evolved into "不要求大神PS" (translation: don't ask the masters for help)

In Korea: We Do Phoshop

On June 26th, 2013 the Facebook page We Do Phoshop^[32] was created, accruing nearly 38,000 likes in two weeks, fulfilling photoshop requests in a similar manner to the Chinese trolls. Highlights from the Facebook page were shared on Korean message board Nemopan^[34] on July 2nd. Additional instances appeared on Instiz^[33] six days later. On July 9th, Japanese news site RocketNews24^[35] featured a number of the photoshopped images, followed by coverage on Kotaku^[36] the next day.

Photoshop Him Out

In June 2017, Facebook user Ashley Guice posted her an engagement photo, featuring a woman, her fiance and a shirtless man in sunglasses, to the Facebook group The Rising Tide Society (shown below). Along with the picture, she wrote:

"HELP! My bestfriend sister just got engaged and she's the one in the photo. This was right after they got engaged and she wants to keep the photo forever and she wants the guy in the background photoshopped.

I cannot for the life of me photoshop him out! Can anyone help me without us having to crop the image?

Shortly after making the request, users began submitting photoshops of the man removed from the photo by generally photoshopping something worse over him (examples below). On June 28th, Imgur user ruthlessruthmore posted a dump of submission in two posts. The first dump received more than 11,800 points and 479,000 views in 48 hours, while the second received more than 1,500 points and 117,000 views in 24 hours.^[38]