CHOPPER PROFILE 5
This Chopchick joined the site back in April 2003. 286 images posted, 6906 votes received and 30 wins, 30 second place and 25 thirds. She hates kitties and loves manass. It’s the one the only….
Bad kitty…Sorry
1. What is your nickname and how did you get it.
nancers is a childhood nickname that has stuck with me.
2. What is your real name and age.?
You’re kidding, right? I’ve been 39 for a few years now.
My real name is Nancy (d'oh)
3. Where are you from and what’s so great about being there.?
I’m from PA and there’s not much great here. I live close to Three Mile Island though.
4. What do you do to keep the bills paid?
I am now the Senior Project Manager for the IT department of one of the largest educational service agencies in Pennsyltucky. I started my career as a teacher of the deaf though. I've gone back to school a few times, most recently completing my certification in Project Management from Villanova U. (Edited since original interview)
5. Being a Mod on this site cant be easy, dealing with the artistic temprement must make it difficult.”, is it ever tempting to just flex some “MODLY POWERS”.
Being a mod does make me behave more. Sometimes I want to get involved in a good Internet fight but I don’t now. How I reply to threads in forum has changed for sure…especially when people are debating.
The only time I feel like abusing my modly powers is when a picture is doing exceptionally well in a contest and I think it’s crap. I just stare at that little delete button and wonder if they’d buy it if I just said, “WHOOPS”?
6. Your a mum and wife, work for a living, PSC mod, a chopchick, protector of the Dyson and a spend some time in the forums, if you ever get spare time...what the hell do ya do with it? (and no drinking Merlot dont count 
)
Spare time – everyone will probably laugh at me, but I love to cook. And I read a lot too. I hate tv and don’t watch it at all except for the news and sports. In the spring and summer I have a pretty large garden that I like to work on. I plant a bunch of tomatoes and make a kick ass Salsa from them.
I was handed a copy of Photoshop Elements a few years ago at work and was told to learn how to use it so I could conduct training sessions on it. I found PSC and learned a lot from a variety of people, did a lot of online tutorials, and worked through a book we had a work.
So you started with a book. What book was that?
The book I used was called “Adobe Photoshop – Classroom in a Book” I never did the whole book, just skipped through it and did what looked fun.
Now I have PS7 and I use a 17” PowerBook G4 with dual monitors, I tried a Wacom for awhile but never really got the hang of it, so I just use my mouse.
I tend to use Getty, iStockPhoto, and Corbis for images. We have some stock image CD’s at work that I use too.
1. What gets your creative juices flowing, how you create that masterpiece?
I don’t know. If my real life is slow, I am bored, then I like to chop to pass the time. Sometimes I just look at an image and an idea pops into my head right away and I am compelled to do it. Lately I haven’t had any ideas/motivation to chop though. It comes and goes
2. What do you use as inspiration?
Merlot
Should have known huh 
3. Do you have a system?
Nope. I just play around. Sometimes I take an image apart into pieces or turn thing upside down and stare at them. I do a lot of opacity changing, the filters I use are minimal, mostly Gaussian blur, shear, and liquify. I use the noise filter when needed as well.
4. Does a chop have to be done a certain way following steps or are you a messy chopper and just go with the flow.
I am very messy, I have often said that if anyone at PSC watched me chop they would laugh their asses off, I’m such an amateur.
5. Filters, brushes and techniques.
I don’t use any special filters, other than the Gaussian blur, noise, and the motion ones sometimes. For some reason I like the wet media brushes and use them at times.
6. What style of chop do you like most?
I like to do textiles the most I guess, but I also enjoy hybrids (Turning a cash register into a phone, etc.) My favorite ones that other people do are the humorous ones that are realistic looking, and clean chops with few errors...ones that "tell a story'.
I agree, you are very good with the textiles, but you seem to dis-like cats or should I say kitties…whats the deal there?
HAH! I just think kitties are pretty useless and annoying. They are fun to abuse….typically they make a lot of noise when you put them in blenders and such, it amuses me.
Everyone mistakenly thinks I do a displacement map for textiles, but that’s not the case. I play with layer modes a lot and do some overlay painting to give the textiles some depth, wrinkles and such. The Dodge and Burn tools are ones I use as well, although you can’t undo things easily later if you change your mind. When I do a textile I will have many “duplicate” layers until I get it to look the way I like.
What is your favorite type of source picture and why?
a. machine (Car, boat, electronic parts)
b. people
c. nature
d. obscure views
e. all of the above
f. other
I used to love people, but as I chopped more and more, I like simple objects or scenes that beg to be “filled up”.
Now I expected you to answer manass to that last question. Speaking of manass you have had some trouble over manass. What would be your favorite manass image?
My favorite manass image of all time would have to be the one I posted and got deleted:
http://homepage.mac.com/nancymorris/.Pictures/daboys.jpg (Possibly Not Safe For Work)
If you meant which was my favorite manass picture “in general” as opposed to one in a contest, I’d have to say the period of time when the PSC men were all posting pictures of their butts (much to my delight) I loved this one so much I put spongebob on it for Reinman – it’s not a good chop, I did it in a hurry before Reinman logged off that night:
http://homepage.mac.com/nancymorris/.Pictures/reinbob.jpg
Oh classic Reinass if I ever saw it...mmm...hang on I just did
1. What makes a good chop for you?
When it looks "real" and an outsider wouldn't know it has been chopped.
2. When you chop is it, Fast and solid, or slow and steady
Slow and unsteady
3. Do you prefer to vote on?
a. all source image
b. import and blend
c. effect i.e. rain/snow/flood/fire/blood
d. as long as it’s a good chop it gets my vote
e. all of the above
f. I don’t vote
I vote for my friends.
No, seriously, I rarely vote for “effect” anymore, or anything that is obviously a filter and nothing more. I like images where humor is involved for sure, and I’ll vote for something funny even if it’s not the greatest chop. I like “clean” images and ones where people pay attention to detail the most. Some people here are really good at posting clean, error free images, and it seems that goes unrecognized by a lot of voters. I also like to look at the "new" folks and will vote for people as they improve.
1. What's your best chop.
My favorite chop ever was this one:
http://homepage.mac.com/nancymorris/.Pictures/video.jpg The featured picture was this:
http://homepage.mac.com/nancymorris/.Pictures/box.jpg
I chose that one because I felt it was very clean, there were no mistakes that I could find, and I liked the “mood” of it. Other favorites include the Electrocuted Cat and the Soccer Ball Shorts, but they both have one glaring error in them that bugs me to this day. On my homepage
http://homepage.mac.com/nancymorris/PhotoAlbum33.html
I have my favorite images/contests on the first page in a rough order with the most favorite being at the top.
2. Now your worst chop.
There were so many when I first started at PSC, but that’s what’s so fun about the site, is the growth we experience. Volkswes and I joined on the same day and sometimes we’d post 4 or 5 images in one contests….and they all sucked! Here’s one I hate:
http://photoshopcontest.com/view-entry/28875/display.html
Metalic and Hellekro gave me pity votes. As you can see, I still had a lot to learn about perspective. HAH!
3. Who do you consider to be one of the better choppers out there.
It’s no secret that Hellekro has always been my idol. I wish she still posted, so the newbies could see how she operated. Of course, she was queen of the quick and funny, back before there was advantage, and at 8:00 AM EST we all waited to see what the featured picture was, then raced to get an idea posted. (I guess I have a lot in common with thbeghin’s profile.) Hellekro invented the first “skin condition’ but I couldn’t find it in her profile or on her website. I’d have to say this was my favorite Hellekro post:
http://www.kroglassen.com/Changereality/gallery/source/hud1%20copy.jpg
I would encourage people to visit Hellekro’s profile here at PSC
http://photoshopcontest.com/boards/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=3929
and her website:
http://www.kroglassen.com/Changereality/
4. What you hate to see in a chop and why you hate it so much.
Blatant violence and naked/nearly naked chicks. I prefer subtle violence and naked/nearly naked men.
5. The best chop of all time.
Hands down, ED209’s Amish Router:
http://photoshopcontest.com/view-entry/69796/votes.html Ed's style consistently combines humor, attention to details, tells a story and no mistakes. Ed209 was the winner of the very first H2H, and he kicked ass in the reunion contest with that entry.
1. You have been here for a while and your know as a no shit kinda girl, what advice would you give to some of our up and coming chopchicks in how to deal with the male members here? (Keep it clean 
)
I do wish there were more females at PSC, not many of them dare to venture into chat, at least during the day. I don’t know that I’m qualified to give “advice” but I know we’ve had some females who took the site too “seriously”. PSC is entertainment to me, and I would hope most people view it that way. It’s a fun hobby to chop and enter contests, the abuse that goes on in chat is all for fun, and that’s it. Jerry717 said the same thing in his interview, about taking the votes and the site too seriously…I would have to agree with him. (Although I must admit it is kinda funny when one of our members, male OR female, wigs out and causes a big fuss)
I have been hanging out at PSC for a few years now, and it’s a great way to pass the time. There’s some great people here and it’s a lot of fun.
Oh, and don't wig out in forum or chat.
I must say this has been a very informative profile, and thank you Nancers for taking the time to answer my questions. Here is to seeing you post a lot more and keeping ya finger of the delete button as much as possible...(any way ya can increase my votes...WHAT...just askin geez ). Once again thanks Nancers and it has been a pleasure to profile the first, of many, ChopChicks.
Blue_lurker
IT'S ALL ABOUT THE CHOP.
