Guess the URL

06Nov08

The small text below “as real as it gets” says download at www.software.UNKNOWN.com. I had a hunch that the unknown text was “cs4″, but I had to make sure.

Ascertaining whether or not I was right simply involved attempting to replicate the final result (the mystery text) using what I thought was the text would be. To start off, a similar font and font size was applied to a new text layer containing “www.software.cs4.com”. This layer was then scaled down.

The original text and the simulation text were then scaled upwards.

Already it was evident that the unknown text was indeed “cs4″. The application of a few filters to this one image further confirmed my hypothesis.

Filter > Stylize > Find Edges

Filter > Stylize > Torn Edges

Image > Adjustments > Thresholds

Unfortunately, http://www.software.cs4.com/ does not exist.

Update: A commenter has found a 1200 x 750 version of the original image and revealed that I was wrong. Someone on Digg managed to locate what seems to be the original post on Flickr. The missing text wasn’t cs4, but rather asli. The link, http://www.software-asli.com/ , leads to a software vendor. So this wasn’t made by Adobe after all.

Filed under: Photoshop   |  5 Comments
Tags: decoding, Photoshop, URL, web site