In this week’s free Deke’s Techniques movie, Deke shows you how to quickly mask last week’s caricature against a dramatic new background. Appropriately, this quick technique employs the Quick Mask mode in Photoshop, resulting in our bug-eyed creature finding a new home in a background that’s as suitably exaggerated as he is:

The technique employs the aptly named Quick Mask mode. (Well, it’s suitably named this time; some masks are more work to create than others.) In this case, the Color Range command does the heavy lifting, and the good ol’ Brush tool set to Overlay mode does the fine-tuning. 

But I wonder, does this technique work on characters as well as caricatures? What if one’s subject wore most of his whimsy on the inside? What if mystery man’s hair was somewhat, er, wispier and, uh, hoarier than our thickly coiffed dark-haired model? Is this technique still viable? 

Well, if you overlook the lighting inconsistencies, I would say, yes. With a few adaptations, you can easily use this approach to mask this particular character against a background that enhances the color of both his eyes and his favorite sweater: 

For members of lynda.com (and those of you who feel Deke’s forehead is a bit shiny in this photo), Deke’s got an exclusive movie this week in which he shows you how to dramatically shade and sharpen the caricature now that it’s in its new background. If you’re not a member of lynda.com, you can get a free week’s trial membership at lynda.com/deke. Where you can check out over 300 other adaptable Deke’s Techniques as well.