Rogne Media Photoshop Puzzle Solutions
Today on the Adobe Photoshop Facebook page, they linked to a Photoshop Puzzle by the guys over at Rogne Media.
The Photoshop Puzzle consists of 20 levels. The goal is to find the code to take you to the next level. There are hints below each image written in white on a white background. You can simply highlight the text to make it show up. I highly recommend trying it for yourself first and only use these solutions if you are absolutely stuck.
I used Adobe Photoshop CC 14.1.1 on a Mac for all levels with the exception of Level 19 which I note down below.
You can start the puzzle here: http://www.rognemedia.no/Puzzle/
Level 1 Solution

URL
http://www.rognemedia.no/Puzzle/
Hint
add dk4ha.html in the address bar to find the next level. Small letters.
Solution
This one is pretty simple, add dk4ha.html to the end of the URL to advance to the next level. This level shows you the basics of what you need to do to proceed to the next level, http://www.rognemedia.no/Puzzle/dk4ha.html
Level 2 Solution

URL
http://www.rognemedia.no/Puzzle/dk4ha.html
Hint
it’s getting hard to read… you might need Photoshop soon….
Solution
Again this one is pretty simple, as you can see this image has the code “asoxch” in the bottom left of the image. So you just need to change the url to ‘asoxch.html’ to advance to the next level.
Level 3 Solution

URL
http://www.rognemedia.no/Puzzle/asoxch.html
Hint
tiny
Solution
As the hint suggests, we’re looking for something quite small. The code for the next level is hidden in the bottom left corner of the image. Using Photoshop I zoomed in to read the code, and then changed the url to go to a4xi.html.
Level 4 Solution

URL
http://www.rognemedia.no/Puzzle/a4xi.html
Hint
so dark…
Solution
So this image appears to be solid black, and the hint suggests that it’s too dark. So we just need to lighten the image up. An easy way to do this is by using the Levels panel in Photoshop.
So open the image up in Photoshop and go to Image > Adjustments > Levels.
Once you have the Levels panel open, grab the white slider on the bottom of the Input Levels section, and slide it all the way to the left. The value will go from 255 to 2, and will expose the code to proceed to the next level.
Level 5 Solution

URL
http://www.rognemedia.no/Puzzle/5sichj.html
Hint
noisy colours
Solution
So at first glance this level looks like just a bunch of static. However, the code is in there. The solution is in the Channels Panel in Photoshop. If you open up the Blue channel, you can see a faint code hidden in there.
With the Blue channel selected, I open up the Levels Panel again, and move the white slider to make the code easier to read.
Level 6 Solution

URL
http://www.rognemedia.no/Puzzle/6sixja.html
Hint
numbers in the water…
Solution
So this level tripped me up for a bit, because the hint made me think that the gradient could be transformed into the code by using a filter. So I tried Ripple, Watercolor, etc… but none of them worked.
However, after looking through the Filters menu, I found the Digimarc Watermark filter. You can open using Filter > Digimarc > Read Watermark. The code is the Image ID ’765237′. Clever.
Level 7 Solution

URL
http://www.rognemedia.no/Puzzle/765327.html
Hint
beyond the channels
Solution
So by default in Photoshop, the Layers, Channels and Paths Panels are together. So the hint tells us “beyond the channels”, which means go one more tab over, in this case to the Paths Panel. As you can see there is a Work Path in this image. If you select it, you get the code to the next puzzle.
Level 8 Solution
URL
http://www.rognemedia.no/Puzzle/8xysha.html
Hint
hmmm, it’s not displaying in the browser…
Solution
This is the first of a couple of levels that use PSD files instead of standard web files (GIF, JPG, PNG). So you need to download the PSD file and open it up in Photoshop. In Chrome you can simply right click the image and select Save Image As.
Once you open the PSD in Photoshop, there are two layers. One is the Background layer, and the other is named ’9asoiu’, which is the code to the next level.
Level 9 Solution

URL
http://www.rognemedia.no/Puzzle/9asoiu.html
Hint
I think I’ll stop giving hints now… They are getting so meta…
Solution
Now he’s getting clever with his hints. He’s telling us that the code is in the metadata of the image. To open the metadata for the image go to File > File Info. You’ll see the code ’10welldone’ in the Keywords section.
Level 10 Solution

URL
http://www.rognemedia.no/Puzzle/10welldone.html
Hint
Sometimes the usefulness of hitns are offset by their usefulness…
Solution
This level can be a bit tricky at first, but notice the four corners of the image, the pattern diverges. Couple that with the hint of ‘offset’, it quickly becomes clear what we need to do.
So first things first, we need to take the image out of Indexed mode to make it editable. To do this go to Image > Mode > RGB Color. Once you’ve done that, it unlocks Filters menu. So now we want to use the Offset Filter, it’s located at Filter > Other > Offset.
This image is 500 x 500 pixels, so let’s offset it by half, and set the edges to wrap around. Now in the center of the image you can read the code ’11palu’ (remember each code is in lower-case).
Level 11 Solution

URL
http://www.rognemedia.no/Puzzle/11palu.html
Hint
I’m cross-eyed…
Solution
At first look of this puzzle, I wanted to know if there was some subtle difference between the two blocks of text. So let’s put one of top of the other, at half opacity.
We need to take the image out of Indexed mode to make it editable. To do this go to Image > Mode > RGB Color.
Next I use the Marquee tool to draw a box around the left block of text. With the Marquee tool still selected, I right click the selection and choose “Layer via Cut”. This will take this selection and move it into it’s own layer.
Next I select the Move tool and select “Layer 1″ (which is the new layer we just created) in the layers panel. I then turn the Opacity of the layer down to 50% (it’s in the layers panel). And finally I move Layer 1 over the top of the right paragraph of text, as you can see three words line up correctly: “ver”, “nibh”, “quis”, putting these three words together is the solution.
Level 12 Solution

URL
http://www.rognemedia.no/Puzzle/vernibhquis.html
Hint
Projecting a high successrate on this one…
Solution
We need to take the image out of Indexed mode to make it editable. To do this go to Image > Mode > RGB Color.
We just need to apply a Polar Coordinates filter to this: Filter > Distort > Polar Coordinates.
The next code becomes clear ’12xbpdb’.
Level 13 Solution

URL
http://www.rognemedia.no/Puzzle/12xbpdb.html
Hint
Want a hint? God save you…
Solution
I really liked this level, even though I’m not really sure of the meaning of the hint. However, looking at this image, it’s clear that some of the colors in the gradient are missing. Since this is an Indexed Color image, we can look at the Color Table. You can do this by going to Image > Mode > Color Table. Once you open the Color Table, the solution is quite clear.
Level 14 Solution

URL
http://www.rognemedia.no/Puzzle/14fl.html
Hint
No need for me to guide you…
Solution
I wouldn’t have been able to solve this one without the hint. You just need to turn on the guides in Photoshop, you can do this by doing View > Show > Guides. Also make sure that View > Extras is checked.
There is another hint in the image itself, “What letters in this sentence?”, with the guides on there are a few letters in the crosshairs ‘heesn’, which is the answer.
Level 15 Solution
URL
http://www.rognemedia.no/Puzzle/heesn.html
Hint
Don’t you just hate when the browser won’t display the image? I hope we can turn this trend around…
Solution
This is another PSD image that needs to be downloaded like in Level 8.
This level requires use of the 3D tools in more recent versions of Photoshop. You can open the 3D panel by using Window > 3D.
Once you have the 3D Panel open, you can simply select ‘Default Camera’, and you get a nice little animation moving the code into view, ’16acksjg’.
Level 16 Solution
URL
http://www.rognemedia.no/Puzzle/16acksjg.html
Hint
Time to go all Red Dwarf-CSI on this one…
Solution
This is another PSD image that needs to be downloaded like in Level 8.
So at first I didn’t get the reference to Red Dwarf – CSI, but a quick Google search resulted in this:
Which made me laugh pretty hard, but didn’t help me much. Perhaps someone could explain it to me
However, working with the image for a bit, I opened up the Filter Gallery, Filter > Filter Gallery, which made the code show up. Selecting the Film Grain effect under Artistic makes the code visible, along with a note “I’m impressed if you found this with no hint!”. Again, not sure how the hint plays into it. But alas, there is the code ’17alsj’.
Level 17 Solution

URL
http://www.rognemedia.no/Puzzle/17alsj.html
Hint
Solution
So no hint on this one, so we’re on our own.
At first I tried typing out the whole code, which didn’t work. I saw different numbers starting with 18 in there, so I thought, hey maybe there is some subset of the text we need to use.
I did notice that the image was Indexed Color, so I opened up the Color Table (Image > Mode > Color Table) again to see if I could find anything.
I grabbed the eyedropper tool, and selected the gray from the first “1″ in the string. This turned all of the grays with the same color to be transparent, leaving only the code remaining, ’18zxjvb’.
Very clever.
Level 18 Solution

URL
http://www.rognemedia.no/Puzzle/18zxjvb.html
Hint
Time for a new year’s resolution…
Solution
This hint was a dead giveaway, Image > Image Size. The resolution of this image is ’1991′, which is the code.
Level 19 Solution

URL
http://www.rognemedia.no/Puzzle/1991.html
Hint
FFT
Solution
Okay so this puzzle is by far the hardest of all of them, and I’m not quite happy with my solution. So if you guys have a better way to solve this, I’m all ears.
This level introduced me to a new concept that I hadn’t seen before Fourier Transforms.
FFT is pretty dang cool stuff, it works really well for removing repeating patterns from images. Look at these animated gifs as an example.
Unfortunately, as far as I’m aware, Adobe Photoshop doesn’t have FFT support built in. So you have to use a third party plugin. The FFT Photoshop Plugin by Alex V. Chirokov (more info).
This plugin doesn’t work on Mac, so I had to hop over to my PC to finish the puzzle. I also considered writing a quick script to do it as well, but the Plugin worked on my PC.
So once you have the FFT plugin installed, open the image and use Filter > Fourier Transform > FFT.
You’ll notice some content on the edges, it’s most clear in the Blue Channel, so let’s select that.
Now we’ll apply the Offset Filter Filter > Other > Offset, and set it to 250 x 250, wrap around.
This makes the code readable, well readable to someone who has spent years answering CAPTCHAs. The code is ’20cjsdzxpy’. However, like I said, I feel as if I haven’t fully finished this puzzle. Input from others is more than welcome.
In Conclusion
I really enjoyed this series of puzzles, kudos to the Rogne Media guys for putting it together!
I’m going to spend a bit more time learning FFT, because it really seems like it would be helpful.
Questions, comments, feedback are more than welcome in the comments!