This week’s free Deke’s Techniques video continues the fine dekeTradition of replicating the effects of distinctive modern pop artists. We’ve seen him use Photoshop (and/or Illustrator) to create homages to Andy Warhol, Bridget Riley, and now Roy Lichtenstein—taking an ordinary photograph and applying an Illustrator-created pattern in Photoshop to make a Ben-Day dot effect.

The effect requires uniform (not halftone) dots. So, Deke hops over to Illustrator to collect the correct pattern. Then, using Photoshop filters, layer effects, and some rudimentary masking he arrives at this final effect, a mobile-phone-sporting update-homage to Lichtenstein’s Oh, Jeff…I Love You, Too…But…

Let me say, I have my suspicions about people who use too many ellipses. What exactly does she think has ended? Jeff’s philandering? Jeff’s stalking of her? Jeff’s favorite buddy-cop TV series? Or, is it she who had ended it? Precision dots and ambiguous messages in true Lichtensteinian form!

Ironically, despite the precision of the technique, this image above had to be tweaked in order to maintain the roundness of the dots at the resolution required by our website. Resizing a piece like this is a master class in Photoshop interpolation and file format choices. Our experiments inspired some unambivalent choice words from Deke which he has threatened to share with you (and/or the Photoshop team) one day.

Meanwhile, if you’d like to see how he creates the final touches of the project: background, lips, hair, etc. there’s an exclusive movie at lynda.com this week. If you’re not a member, you can get a free week’s trial at lynda.com/deke to check it out.