dekePod
Summary: Deke McClelland's uncensored, unregulated, and frankly unwise once-every-other-weekly videos on the topics of computer graphics, digital imaging, and the unending realm of creative manipulations. Draw the blinds, hide the babies, hope for the best. Or just watch, wonder, and (if all goes according to plan) learn. We think you'll agree, what dekePod lacks in subtlety, it makes up for in a lack of tact. Sponsored by O'Reilly Media and lynda.com, who, if pressed, deny everything. And now, Deke presents his list of the top 40 features in Photoshop -- one weekly video at a time. Some are tools, others are commands, still others are conceptual. All are invaluable. Learn these 40 features and you’ll know Photoshop.
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- Artist: Deke McClelland
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Podcasts:
Photoshop offers two tools that paint with luminance: The dodge tool paints in brightness, the burn tool paints in darkness. Crazy useful, and they've gotten so much better in Photoshop CS4.
Since the first daguerreotype, photographers have cropped their images to hone in on the details that matter most. The crop tool does that, as well as straighten and more. Check it out.
Hue/Saturation not only spins colors and intensity values, it lets you modify one color independently of all others. And it does so in such a credible way, you would never know it was there. Perfection.
The Liquify filter lets you paint in distortions, so you can perform digital nips and tucks. You can slim people down, edit their posture, and make them look their absolute best. See how in this video.
The Actions palette lets you record your work so you never have to do it again. Plus, you can build up complex visual effects and share them with others, as Deke demonstrates in this jaw-dropping video.
The modest brush tool is one of the deepest, most versatile tools in Photoshop. It's not only a terrific painting tool, but it is also invaluable for masking, as this video demonstrates.
Many folks select images in Photoshop with the likes of the Quick Select and Magic Wand tools. Highly automated, but these tools rarely work accurately. Experts use the Pen tool. Using the Pen tool is an art form worth learning, because it always works.
One of the oldest, most abstruse, downright incomprehensible commands in Photoshop, Calculations lets you merge two channels to create a new alpha channel. Learn it: It's the backbone of masking.
If you're creating Web graphics, then there's no substitute for Save for Web and Devices. It disposes of non-essential data, reduces file sizes to their absolute minimum, and converts the image to sRGB, the color space of the people.
Photoshop offers lots of tools for automating selections, but two stand out from the pack: The first, Refine Edge, lets you modify your selection using five different parameters and preview the results in five different ways.
In the digital age, we shoot full-color photographs. Which is a good thing, because it means we can distill the perfect black-and-white shot in Photoshop.
Many of Photoshop's best features can only be accessed from the keyboard. Like, how would you know Alt+Backspace (or Option-Delete) fills with black? Watch. It gets better.
Type in Photoshop is forever editable and super-smooth. Deke shows how it works by assembling a high-res, pro-quality magazine cover in one short video.
Layer comps let you assemble multiple image variations or even independent pieces of artwork inside a single Adobe Photoshop file. The Layer Comps palette gives you the freedom to explore.
Deke gets things started with a pair of options that can clean out Photoshops plumbing when things get clogged up: Reset and purge.
