The millions of people worldwide who will likely open the latest version of Adobe Photoshop, the leading image-editing computer program, will be greeted by a splash screen depicting an image from “Falling … (Round Things),” by Egyptian digital artist Amr Elshamy. Against all odds, Elshamy, also an aspiring filmmaker, has become the first Egyptian and first Arab artist to have artwork featured on a Photoshop splash screen. The happy-go-lucky Elshamy never imagined that “Falling” would produce a reaction contrary, so to speak, to its title — i.e., rising to the top of the digital art world.

“Falling” consists of three panels that depict, respectively, a girl appearing to fall from the sky toward a circle of trees, a boy standing amid circular mountains, and the two preceding images combined. Adobe selected the image of the boy alone for the splash screen of Photoshop CC 2017.

“Once I found out, I felt like my mind stopped working for a while,” Elshamy told Al-Monitor. “I was over the moon.” Indeed, one can imagine how Elshamy must have felt given some of the setbacks in his pursuit of his art. Elshamy had hoped to attend Egypt's Higher Institute of Cinema to study filmmaking and animation, but he revealed, “My applications were rejected three times.”

In continuing to follow his heart despite rejection, Elshamy began posting his artwork on Facebook. To his surprise, Elshamy said, “I received sharp criticism I never expected from people.” He removed one image he titled “The Family,” which depicts a lost boy and the monsters who tried to help him, after receiving comments calling it “nonsense” and “illogical.” Elshamy, who has a degree in tourism, said his dreams are his source of inspiration, and in his art, he tends to present monsters as friendly creatures who try to help people.