I tend to be a Photoshop purist — you can use Photoshop to perform minor technical fixes. Correct white balance, enhance contrast, crop the shot a big tighter. Sometimes I think minor things are okay — in a portrait, it’s okay to clone out a cell tower in the background, or in an artistic landscape shot, it’s okay to clone out the litter. But I’ve never been fond on the ultra-tacky practice of applying random Photoshop filters and calling it art.

Consequentially, I have pretty mixed feelings about the Cutout tool. On one hand, it creates stuff that looks pretty good on its own. On the other hand, I don’t know that snapping an uninspiring photograph, applying a basic Photoshop filter and sliding a dial constitutes art. I’m pretty certain it doesn’t, in fact. But at the same time, I like these: