This week’s free Deke’s Techniques episode explains how to export the avatar (well, I should say my avatar) we’ve been working on in Photoshop and Illustrator for the past two weeks as a universally usable PNG file, suitable for your (my) use all over the blessed internet. You say you know how to export a PNG from Illustrator? Well, Deke’s approach is to take the whole darn thing (me) back to Photoshop first. 

Why put it back in Photoshop? One reason is that it allows you to preview how the image is going to look when reduced in size (as avatars generally are) using, ingeniously, the Image Size dialog box preview. Need more? Watch the video!

Along the way, you’ll witness another ingenious Photoshop trick that I’ve never seen before: designating your desired crop boundaries with two extreme marquees placed at the opposite corners of a smart object. If you’ve ever tried to be precise with the crop tool (or even just a carefully placed singular marquee intended to designate your crop boundary) this will come as a revelation. 

I promise next week will not feature an avatar of me. But if the past few weeks’ techniques have inspired you to try creating a cartoon doppleganger of yourself, send them along to me (colleen[at]deke[dot]com) so I can look at something besides myself and perhaps share with the dekeOmmunity. 

Of course, the entire collection of Deke’s Techniques is available at lynda.com. And if you aren’t yet a member and need a free week to convince you, you can get one at lynda.com/deke.