Because the series is rooted in Hungarian language and culture, some works retain the original Hungarian proverb alongside an adaptive English version. Where no direct English equivalent exists, the translation prioritises the wordplay and its connection to the Photoshop tool rather than literal correspondence.
Processes involved in digital image editing can often be related to concepts already present in proverbs themselves: repetition, correction, transformation, distortion and manipulation.
The Hungarian saying suggests that a daughter is likely to resemble her mother — not only physically, but also in character and behaviour. Here, the inherited idea of resemblance and repetition is connected to Photoshop’s Clone Stamp Tool, which creates a precise copy of one part of an image.
The tool samples texture, colour and tonal information from a source area and transfers it elsewhere, turning resemblance into literal duplication.
Take What You’re Given; If They Hit You, Move — Move Tool
The original Hungarian saying describes a situation that demands both acceptance and quick reaction: take what is offered, but move when danger comes. The English wording deliberately uses move rather than a more literal run away, allowing the saying to connect directly to Photoshop’s Move Tool. One of the most basic image-editing functions, the tool allows an object or selected element to be repositioned instantly within the digital canvas.
Here, linguistic movement and digital movement become the same gesture.
Photoshopped (Pro)verbs — Take What You’re Given; If They Hit You, Move (Move Tool)
Every Saint Bends Towards Himself — Puppet Warp
Hungarian proverb: „Minden szentnek maga felé hajlik a keze.”
Literally, the proverb says that every saint’s hand bends towards himself: even those who appear virtuous tend to favour their own interests.
Although the English expression charity begins at home conveys a related idea, it would lose the physical metaphor that is essential to this work. The Hungarian verb hajlik — bends — creates the connection to Photoshop’s Puppet Warp tool.
Puppet Warp allows selected parts of an image to be twisted, bent and repositioned by placing control points on the figure. Limbs can be manipulated almost like articulated joints, even into positions that contradict ordinary anatomy.
The digital body therefore quite literally bends towards itself.
The Schoolmaster’s Wife’s Canvas — Canvas Settings
This Hungarian expression has no convincing English equivalent and survives in different versions and interpretations. Its cultural specificity is therefore part of the work rather than something the translation attempts to erase.
One origin story refers to a village schoolmaster’s wife who tried to correct her husband’s drunken behaviour by beating him as cloth was traditionally beaten during processing. The idea of repeatedly reshaping or correcting something is connected here to Photoshop’s Canvas Settings. Canvas Size and Canvas Color establish the dimensions, background and spatial framework within which the digital image can subsequently be altered.
The canvas becomes both a material surface and a metaphorical space in which correction can be repeatedly applied.
Photoshopped (Pro)verbs — The Schoolmaster’s Wife’s Canvas (Canvas Settings)
A Stain on One’s Honour — Spot Healing Brush
The metaphor of a stain on someone’s honour works naturally in both Hungarian and English: an ethical or reputational blemish is imagined as something visible that ought to be removed.
In the image, a stain on Justitia’s honour can be made to disappear without a trace using Photoshop’s Spot Healing Brush.
The primary function of the tool is to eliminate small imperfections and unwanted details while preserving surrounding textures and colours. Photoshop reconstructs the missing area from neighbouring visual information, effectively replacing what should no longer be seen. Digital retouching therefore becomes a literal form of reputational cleansing.
Photoshopped (Pro)verbs — A Stain on One’s Honour (Spot Healing Brush)
Photoshopped (Pro)verbs — Look Left, See Right (Rotate View Tool)
Photoshopped (Pro)verbs —Nothing Is Impossible, Only Unrenderable
Generative tools may appear capable of producing almost anything, yet they can still encounter concepts whose contradictions, linguistic ambiguities or visual logic resist convincing representation.
The limitation is therefore not necessarily impossibility in the ordinary sense, but something more specifically technological:
meaning that may simply be unrenderable.
