Photoshop expert, trainer, author.
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Deke's blog posts are hosted at:http://www.deke.com/dekeblog
More Cereal (For Those Who Like a Regular Breakfast)
July 04 2009
Hey, peops. I have a fitting 4th of July post for you. A bunch of comic strips, just as the Founding Fathers intended. A few weeks back, I mentioned how I recently located a treasure trove of my old daily comic strips for the local Boulder newspaper, the Colorado Daily. Called… read moreJuly 03 2009
...on the Fourth of July. Yes, dekeOlutionaries, it's time for that yearly celebration of Independence Day here in the good ol' US of A. So I thought I'd wish you all peace, freedom, and love of history by playing this "Fireworks" episode of Schoolhouse Rock. For those of you who… read moreJune 30 2009
(And/or a rudimentary degree in Spelling.) Yes, my dekeOphiles, this week's discussion with the Photoshop Diva herself, Katrin Eismann, has convinced me that I should put everything on hold and go to New York to persue continuing arts education. Oh sure, it might have been the martinis, but when you… read moreJune 30 2009
Yes, my dekeOphiles, this week's discussion with photoshop diva herself, Katrin Eismann, has convinced me that I should put everything on hold and go to New York to persue my continuing arts education. Oh sure, it might have been the martinis, but when you hear Katrin describe the MPS in… read moreGridIron Flow (Finally!) Ships
June 29 2009
Followers of this site may recall a recent epidsode of Martini Hour in which Colleen and I interviewed Karen Gauthier, one-time product manager of Photoshop and present product manager of GridIron Flow. Well, as luck would have it, the mythical Flow (the damn thing's been in development for the last… read moreHappy Anniversary, Baby, Got You on My Mi-hind.
June 24 2009
Hello, friends of dekeOnline. We're declaring that today is the official day that dekeOnline turns one. Yes, we can't believe it either. It's been such a wacky year of great tips, sassy videos, loungy podcasts, and tons and tons of great community participation from you wonderful dekeOmaniacs. In order to celebrate,… read moreMartini Hour 020, In Which Deke Aspires to Be Asleep In the Gutter
June 23 2009
This week on Martini Hour, the lounge is once again full of luminary talent, international charm, and refreshing cocktails. We've invited back that wizard of digital paint, Bert Monroy, to discuss his new work, "Times Square at Night." And we're also fortunate enough to have that salty-tongued Canadian Karen Gauthier… read moreVisual Notetaking: Wish We Had This in School
June 16 2009
Some of you may remember a couple weeks back, where I showed my joy at learning how to draw cartoon people with actual personalities, which I learned from cartoonist, author, and visual notetaking guru Austin Kleon as part of VizThink U's webinar. I'm telling you, dekeTopians, this visual notetaking thing… read moreMartini Hour 019, In Which Colleen (Lover of Pronouns) Unleashes the "We" in the Sche
June 16 2009
This week, we are joined by the one person who may possess more esoteric knowledge about Photoshop than dekeHimself: Live from the Chicago Annex of the dekeLounge--which he has stocked with a variety of vodkas (did someone say vodka?)--help us welcome renowned photographer and Photoshop insider Jeff Schewe. Plus, we… read moreMartini Hour 019, In Which Colleen Unleashes the "We" in the Sche
June 16 2009
This week, we are joined by the one person who may possess more esoteric knowledge about Photoshop than dekeHimself: Live from the Chicago Annex of the dekeLounge--which he has stocked with a variety of vodkas (did someone say vodka?)--help us welcome renowned photographer and Photoshop insider Jeff Schewe. Plus, we… read moreButterflies: My Random Adventure in Nature Photography
June 12 2009
My goodness, I had a good time this week. While the dekeOnline version of me was pimping GridIron Flow (which I quite rightfully love) and celebrating the latest and last dekePod (now officially undead), I was secretly enjoying a few days offline with my young and fabulous boys. During which… read moreMartini Hour 018, In Which Deke Takes on Two Women at Once
June 09 2009
If you've ever had one too many martinis and can't remember where you stored the components of your complicated project, this week's guest has the answer for you. Karen Gauthier, our first ever international visitor to the dekeLounge, travels all the way from Ottowa (that's in Canada, you know), to… read moreMartini Hour 017, In Which Colleen Discovers Deke's Secret Martini Past (with Bert Monroy)
June 02 2009
After a couple of weeks of just me and Deke in the lounge, I decided it was time to lure in another digital imaging luminary. So I mixed up some Black Russians and sent the dekeLimo for none other than digital photo-realistic artistist, Bert Monroy. Well, actually, you'll find out… read moreMartini Hour 016, In Which Deke Reveals His Fear of the Digital Trash Can
May 26 2009
Hello, my delightful dekeLounge dwellers. So glad to have you back once again. This week, it's a traditional Martini Hour with me and my good friend Deke sipping, well, martinis, and engaging in some classic Martini Hour shenanigans like the Secret Handshake and He Said/She Said. Here's what we've got… read moreHow I Translated a Comic Strip into a Career in Computer Graphics
May 25 2009
Last Monday, I mentioned how recently I stumbled upon my cache of 400+ comic strips that I wrote and illustrated during the tail end of my college career. The comic strip, in case you forgot, was called Cereal. It never actually appeared in color, but thanks to Photoshop, I can… read moreRecent Posts | All Posts
Multimedia
dekePod 018: Photoshop and the Andy Warhol Silkscreen Effect
Publish Date: Jun. 11, 2009
Have you ever wanted to create an authentic looking Andy Warhol silkscreen? One of the most influential artists of the 20th century, Warhol was known for his avant-garde paintings and screenprintings. Remember Warhols garishly colored celebrity images of Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, or Mao Zedong? In the studio he called The Factory, Warhol took an assembly-line approach to his high-contrast, silkscreens and produced art as a mass consumable, like a t-shirt or a pack of gum. Its not surprising that his art is still popular today, and there are lots of one-click Warhol solutions. But if you want the real thing, join Deke McClelland in the final episode of this dekePod series, as he dissects Warhols process, and shows you how to use Photoshop to render your favorite portrait in bona-fide Warhol magnificence.
dekePod 017: Photoshop and the Visual Communications Makeover
Publish Date: May. 28, 2009
Signs are our friends. They help us observe the rules when we actually need to know the rules. We dont all speak English, and tourism is a huge industry, so signs need to be language-independent. Which is why a vocabulary of immediately identifiable symbols is essential to every working artist and designer. So if symbols are so important, why are most such an indecipherable mess? Computer icons! Laundry instructions! Or Dekes favorite: What you shouldnt throw into an airplane toilet! Learn what works and what doesnt in this laugh-out-loud episode of dekePod.
dekePod 016: Photoshopping the Great Masters
Publish Date: May. 14, 2009
They say you cant be too rich or too thin. So how about getting rich by making others thin? Plenty of experienced retouchers make small but enviable fortunes shaving body fat off already lithe models. But rather than showing you a present-day example--honestly, how many underfed waifs do we need to see made skinnier?--Deke takes us back to a time when ideas of beauty were very different: the High Renaissance. In those times of mean circumstances and manual labor, body fat was a thing to be envied. How best to take a well-fed model rendered by the likes of Raphael and make her look like a modern work of art?
dekePod 015: Photoshop and the Lost Undersea Channel
Publish Date: Apr. 30, 2009
The ocean is a different world. Where else can you cavort with colorful animals a thousand feet or more above the Earths surface? But the romance of the sea comes at a price. Just as the watery depths rob our lungs of air, they rob our eyes of color. Its not uncommon for an underwater photo to lack any information in the Red channel. Which is where coral, clown fish, and our very own skin tones live. Fortunately, Deke knows how to summon a Red channel back from the dead. Watch this dekePod and learn how to create underwater images that will satisfy your inner Jacques Cousteau.
dekePod 014: Photoshop vs. Adobe BridgeBeware the Cache, the Cache Must Die!
Publish Date: Apr. 16, 2009
If you use Photoshop, then you probably browse your images with Adobes Bridge, which shows you thumbnails of your files. Good news: The Bridge lets you preview images without going to the trouble of opening them. Bad news: Those previews result in large cache files that eat up your hard drive. Worse yet, they permit others to track what youve been looking at. Even if youve long since destroyed the original file, the thumbnail persists! Learn how to protect yourselfand maybe even save your job.
dekePod Episode 013: The Mating Habits of the Pen Tool
Publish Date: Apr. 2, 2009
Adobe's landmark pen tool defined an industry. But to the uninitiated, its reliance on anchor points and control handles makes it as approachable as first-year algebra. Until you see it's nothing more than a mating ritual: The points are boys and the handles are girls. Once you get that, it all falls into place.
dekePod Episode 012: The Droplet Song (A Love Song to a Lost Feature in Photoshop)
Publish Date: Mar. 19, 2009
How best to encourage people to use an obscure but super-useful Photoshop feature? Rhyme, rhythm, and romance. Hence a music video that will make all your automation dreams come true. Give Deke five minutes of your time and hell set your world on fire.
dekePod Episode 011: Giving It Up For the Family
Publish Date: Dec. 9, 2008
Creative professionals are routinely roped into frivolous art projects for their families. You don't want to spend much time on them because who wants to do more of what you already do all day? But you don't want to do a lousy job because your cred's at stake. Oh and because, sure, you care about your family. In this episode of dekePod, Deke shows you how to create a spectacular birthday party invitation, with little effort, using a combination of found art and Photoshop.
dekePod Episode 010: The Instant Liquid Diet
Publish Date: Nov. 19, 2008
Ah, the holiday season, a time of expansion. Great physical expansion. Fatty, high-calories food is everywhere you turn. And so we grow. But not this year. In some distant future, when you review Thanksgiving 2008 in your photo album, youll look back on it as the first of many years that you actually lost weight. "Thank you dekePod," you'll say. Because in this episode, Deke teaches you how to transform fat into fit using the Liquify commandand with smooth, stretch mark-free results.
dekePod Episode 009: Sixties Space Siren
Publish Date: Nov. 5, 2008
If youve seen an episode of the original Star Trek, youre no doubt familiar with the shows main character, Captain Kirk, and his eternal blurry-eyed fascination with women. Every time he came in sight of a love interest, she appeared to him in diffused focus. In this episode of dekePod, Deke shows how you can achieve a nearly identical effect in Photoshop with such flattering results that you yourself could win the captains affections.
dekePod Episode 008: The Masks Palette
Publish Date: Oct. 22, 2008
Photoshop CS4 has been out one week. Hardly enough time for any of us to embrace it, let alone place our faith in it. And yet faith is precisely what one of the program's most highly touted features, The Masks palette, requires of you. Everything about it is promising; little about it makes sense. The palette that makes masks also wears one. In this special Halloween episode, we unmask the Masks palette. Will it be a bag of treats? Or a bundle of tricks? You'll find out, in dekePod.
dekePod Episode 007: Faking an HDR Portrait
Publish Date: Oct. 8, 2008
Think nothing can scare you? Enter dekePod, that thing that is not even slightly scary and yet, be honest, gives you the heebie jeebies. In this episode, Deke investigates how to simulate an extreme-detail HDR portrait -- which would otherwise require you to shoot multiple exposures of a person locked down in a body brace -- using flimflam and forgery. And a shrunken skull. These are the depths of scariness we go to. Here at dekePod.
dekePod Episode 006: Photoshop CS4, Buy or Die
Publish Date: Sep. 23, 2008
September 23 marks the announcement of Adobe's Creative Suite 4. And that means a new version of the company's flagship image editor, Photoshop. Coming just 18 months after its predecessor, is Photoshop CS4 any good? Enter dekePod, Deke McClelland's irreverent and uncensored video series. Day and date with Adobe's announcement, Deke provides a third-party, impartial, and highly opinionated review of the new software. Titled "Photoshop CS4: Buy or Die," this episode promises to show you all facets of the programcomplete with commentarywithout interrupting your busy day. In just five minutes, you'll know whether you want to upgrade or not. Either you buy or it dies, it's as simple as that.
dekePod Episode 005: Spirographs on Steroids
Publish Date: Sep. 3, 2008
In this episode, Deke makes the startling claim that Illustrator, a complex piece of software that costs hundreds of dollars, is better than an $8 Spirograph. Using nothing but half an ellipse and a few live, editable effects, Deke shows you how to construct something truly extraordinary. "Trust me on this one. Artist, non-artist, proficient with Illustrator, never even heard of the program -- I don't care if you live in Antarctica, you have no access to electricity, you haven't seen sunlight in 45 days -- oh my God, what are you, a penguin? -- you're gonna wanna watch this!"
dekePod Episode 004: Stretching a Photo in Illustrator
Publish Date: Aug. 20, 2008
Have you ever wanted to stretch a photo's background but leave the foreground unchanged? Or turn a horizontal photo into a vertical one without making a mess of it? You can't do it in Photoshop CS3, but you can in its companion program, Adobe Illustrator. Deke shows you how in a way that'll make you so happy, you'll think you're on drugs. And wait till you see the new look! Deke is dreamy.













