As things are becoming more and more automated, I feel that the understanding of the process is being lost. I believe that tools should make my life easier and allow me to spend my time doing other things. However there is a downside, does one always understand the automation that is being accomplished? While these can be great timesavers, what happens when it doesn’t work or you don’t like the results? Understanding the process that the automation process is simplifying is key.

A common example is defining an IP network. Most people simply connect to a network and let a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server assign the address. This happens at the office, the home, the coffee shop, pretty much everywhere. When it doesn’t work for whatever reason understanding where to start troubleshooting is a mystery to some. I use DHCP quite a bit; I also do know how to do the entire process manually. I can manually – not that I want to – calculate the subnet network and assign the addresses. When there is no DHCP, I am still able to get connected. If I am still unable to get connected, I am able to call tech support and describe the problem effectively.

While IP networking is a common example it occurs with other technologies as well. I do have an interest in photography and have been doing more processing on images. For some of the process I do it manually, for others I do use automation tool. An example of this process is this picture of Martin Brodeur I took.

Straight out of camera, no processing

I took the shot in a manual mode, shutter priority, I also told the camera where to focus to get Brodeur in focus and the background blurry. I could have accomplished a very similar effect using the Portrait Mode preset in the camera, but I wanted to control the look of the picture. After I took the picture I did some work on it in Lightroom, and Nik Software. In the process I adjusted for the lens, applied a vignette, applied noise reduction, and converted it to black and white. This process was a mix of manual and automated. I could have just clicked a few buttons and called it done. Instead I made decisions along the way, and I understood the impact of those decisions. I was able to decide the final mood of the image as a result.

Processed picture, click to see entire gallery

This result is much better because I controlled the process and got the result I wanted. Did using the automation for part of it save time? Yes it did save time. Since I had taken the time to learn about the conversion process http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=114917 I was able to understand the questions and obtain the result I wanted. Now if you will excuse me, I need to troubleshoot my network as the Wii is not connecting to the Internet.