Photoshop expert, trainer, author.
Biography
Check out dekePod, a video podcast series with Deke McClelland.
Electronic publishing pioneer Deke McClelland is a popular lecturer on Adobe Photoshop and the larger realm of computer graphics and design. He has hosted the interactive "Video Workshop" CD that shipped with Photoshop Versions 7, CS, and CS2, as well as hundreds of hours of tutorial-style video training for industry leaders lynda.com and Total Training. In addition to his video work, Deke has written 84 books translated into 24 languages, with more than 4 million copies in print.
One of the most award-winning writers in the technology market, Deke received the Benjamin Franklin Award for Best Computer Book in 1989. Since then, he has garnered more than 20 honors, including seven independent citations from the Computer Press Association. In 2002, he was inducted into the Photoshop Hall of Fame.
In 2004 Deke created the One-on-One™ book series, which uses video, step-by-step exercises, and hundreds of full-color illustrations to provide readers with the closest thing possible to private instruction from a recognized expert. These ambitious, self-paced guides include the bestselling Adobe Photoshop CS2 One-on-One and Adobe InDesign CS2 One-on-One. Late in 2006 Deke teamed up with vanguard online training company lynda.com to bring the One-on-One training strategy to a line of video products, beginning with Photoshop CS3 Beta One-on-One Preview, the first series available for the public beta of Photoshop CS3. In addition to the full 20-plus hour Photoshop CS3 One-on-One, his plans include Illustrator One-on-One and InDesign One-on-One. Among Deke’s current lynda.com videos are Photoshop Elements 5 Essentials and the #1 ranked Photoshop CS2 Channels and Masks (available for immediate viewing at www.lynda.com/deke).
Deke is an Adobe Certified Expert, a member of the PhotoshopWorld Instructor Dream Team, and a regular speaker for the Photoshop Fling cruise seminars. Deke lives in Boulder, Colorado with his wife and two super-powered boys.
Books
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Blog
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Deke's blog posts are hosted at:http://www.deke.com/dekeblog
November 22 2009
As promised, here’s Part 2 of my travelogue documenting my recent trek through Southern France. Home base: The Medieval walled city of Avignon, southern tip of the Côte du Rhône. Never mind for the present that I promised this post first thing Saturday and here it is Sunday night. As… read moreNovember 20 2009
When both your manager and your producer tell you that you need a vacation, and on the very same day at that, there might be something to it. Which is why I got the hell out of town. Way out of town. All the way to the land of wine,… read moreMartini Hour 041, in Which Colleen Admits She Has No Tattoo
November 19 2009
I can't believe you just showed us that! Oh, get your minds out of the gutter, dekeDeviants. I'm talking about Photoshop Guy Dave Cross's maple-leaf+bar code tattoo. After lounging with Chief Photoshop Guy Scott Kelby last week, in this, the fifth of our live episodes recorded at Photoshop World in… read moreMartini Hour 040, In Which Deke and Scott Kelby Appear Together in Front of Witnesses
November 12 2009
It was one of those historic convergences. Like when Henry VIII and Francis I met on the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520. Or when Pacino and DeNiro finally appeared together in the same movie in 1995. Some wondered whether it would ever happen. But the planets aligned. It… read moreMartini Hour 039, In Which Colleen Is Fooled by Jack Davis' Hair
November 05 2009
It's time for more wow goodness from the Eyecandy lounge. Jack Davis, one of our guests this week, just made fifty cents because I said, "Wow." Wow, Jack. Nice hair. In fact, this episode started out all about the hair. Ben Wilmore, despite being one of the most respected trainers… read moreHe Said/She Said: iPhone Style (The Minor Holiday Installment)
October 30 2009
Read more » read moreMartini Hour 038, In Which Deke Temporarily Abdicates Interviewing Duties to RC Concepcion
October 29 2009
Welcome, martini swillers of all persuasions. It's time for another installment of Martini Hour recorded at Photoshop World live from the Eyecandy Lounge in the Mandalay Bay. In this second live installment, we sit down with a couple of amazing instructors who not only teach Photoshop, but also InDesign, Flash,… read moreMartini Hour 037, In Which Colleen Welcomes One and All to the Eyecandy Sound Lounge
October 22 2009
We had so much fun holding live Martini Hours in Las Vegas. And the audience full of dekeOphiles who came to spend time with us were so cool and supportive! (Some of them even took their shoes off before being asked.) But it gives us a huge thrill this week… read moreMartini Hour 036, In Which Deke Christens This Week's Caller Daffodil
October 15 2009
Hello, friends. Deke here this week. (Colleen is buried hundreds of pages deep inside a book we hope to one day call Photoshop Elements 8 One-on-One, which is slated for delivery next month. Poor dear; book writing is such torment.) And so it is my esteemed privilege to present you… read moreMartini Hour 035, In Which Colleen Urges Deke to Stick with Complicated
October 08 2009
One of the things that listeners told me while we were in Vegas is that, as fun as our guests are, every once in a while it's fun to listen to a classic Deke-and-Colleen conversation. After listening to this week's show, I think I know one of the reasons: Deke… read moreOctober 05 2009
Do me a favor will you, friend? Get in my skin for a moment. A few moments, really. Specifically, last week in Las Vegas. Imagine that you're speaking at Photoshop World, the biggest gathering of Photoshop users on the planet. You're responsible for a total of four sessions, amounting to a… read moreOctober 02 2009
Hey, Martini Nation. Sorry this week's Martini Hour is coming to you a day later than usual. Deke and I are in Las Vegas for Photoshop World and spent yesterday with some awesome dekeLounge denizens at our live show. In our excitement followed by exhaustion, it took us a little… read moreSeptember 30 2009
Deke and I are both here in Las Vegas getting ready for our first ever live recording of our podcast, Martini Hour. Live, as in, in front of an audience full of 'loungers. (Oh yeah, there's also a little thing going on called Photoshop World, too.) As much fun as… read moreDeke and Colleen Join MacVoices' Chuck Joiner and Pull Back the Curtain on Martini Hour
September 30 2009
Hey there. Just checking in to say Deke and I had a blast yesterday, talking to Chuck Joiner of MacVoices. Chuck used his Jedi mind tricks to convince us to pull back the curtain a bit on Martini Hour (without the benefit of cocktails; Chuck is a true master, not… read moreSeptember 24 2009
Ah, it's another Thursday. At the end of a particularly long week. And as you know, our favorite way to celebrate is to kick off our shoes and pour ourselves a frankly much-needed drink (gin and tonic, altogether sugar-free). And just to shake things up, place an international call to… 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 Warhol’s 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. It’s 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 Warhol’s 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 don’t 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 Deke’s favorite: What you shouldn’t throw into an airplane toilet! Learn what works and what doesn’t in this laugh-out-loud episode of dekePod.
dekePod 016: Photoshopping the Great Masters
Publish Date: May. 14, 2009
They say you can’t 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 Earth’s 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. It’s 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 Bridge—Beware the Cache, the Cache Must Die!
Publish Date: Apr. 16, 2009
If you use Photoshop, then you probably browse your images with Adobe’s 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 you’ve been looking at. Even if you’ve long since destroyed the original file, the thumbnail persists! Learn how to protect yourself—and 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 he’ll 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, you’ll 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 command—and with smooth, stretch mark-free results.
dekePod Episode 009: Sixties Space Siren
Publish Date: Nov. 5, 2008
If you’ve seen an episode of the original Star Trek, you’re no doubt familiar with the show’s 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 captain’s 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 program—complete with commentary—without 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.
