Photomontage

New movements in art and graphic design blossomed in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s as a result of the instability brought about by the aftermath of World War I, the Great Depression, and the Russian Revolution. Constructivism, New Typography, Streamline, and Dada recycled photographic images, typography, and graphics as collage elements in a new process called photomontage.

Radical magazines and newspapers from the period, for example, Simplicicimus, Der Knuppel, and Arbeiter-Illustrierte Zeitung ( AIZ , or Worker s Illustrated Times ), published photomontage images as satirical cartoons to promote a socialist or anti-fascist political agenda. Photomontage is a collage of photographs that are carefully cut and pasted together to create a new visual reality. Often, type and other graphic elements are incorporated into the composition. These images synthesized the seamless pictorial realities of multiple photographic images into biting political metaphors and clever visual puns. Traditional cut-and-paste photomontage was an art form derived from the Cubist, Dadaist, and Surrealist movements, but was displayed in the commercial venue of magazine publications . It was the predecessor of the digital composite images we see in many of today s advertisements.

The ability to combine photographs, text, and graphics from multiple sources is one of Photoshop s strongest features. Images can be collected from a scanner, digital camera, or Photo CD, and be composited, superimposed, positioned, scaled, flipped , rotated , and distorted . In Photoshop, almost any effect is possible; the only limitation is your imagination .