I might have implied somewhere that dekePod was returning this week. In fact, this particular episode (#12 for anyone who’s counting) decided to leave again and return next week.
My apologies for that small bit of deception. But at least we have a firm release date: Thursday, March 19. Plus, you get another frame. Of me in a poncho. Like you’d want such a thing, but nonetheless, here it is.
Good news: This is the first dekePod to feature a chorus. Like in those ancient Greek tragedies where a boy really likes his mom. Only these people are altogether wholesome and they look like they work at Land’s End. Wanna see?
Ladies and gentlemen. My earthy, folksy, singing, swaying, mostly-sunglassed, height-calibrated “The Droplet Song” chorus:
If that doesn’t make you shiver with anticipation, then I got nothing.
DekePod
I’m totally looking forward to your upcoming, highly anticipated return to your video podcast. The musical approach with attendant chorus sounds entertaining. I’m assuming you’re not continuing in the hip-hop/rap vein you in which you earlier dabbled (funny, but doesn’t sustain repeated viewing to the extent your other podcasts do).
Of all your video podcasts, the 101 Tips in Five Minutes, with rapper Deke is the one I’ve watched the least number of times. Partly I suppose it’s because I’m not a “power user” making extensive use of keyboard shortcuts. Partly because it doesn’t have the tremendous visual range and wit of your other podcasts.
Your use of briefly displayed images, sometimes in rapid sequence (as in Captain Kirk’s series of romantic trysts are incredibly compelling and always offer more on repeated visits. Your hand and body expressions and rapper persona in your 101 Tips can be less interesting with repeated viewing (for me anyway).
I regularly watch (or listen to) one or two of your podcasts as I’m getting ready to go to sleep. In complete darkness with headphones on, I’m holding my iPod to absorb as much Photoshop knowledge as I possibly can. I’ve only just gotten Creative Suite Design Premium a few days ago. Prior to that, I’ve used version 7 for years and years (the office where I work still uses it). I’ve had the first version of CS on my Mac at home for several years.
Some feedback on the Martini Hour:
I was extremely skeptical of the format initially, ready to cheer on the flamers, but have come to enjoy the relaxed banter between Deke and Colleen. You two have wonderful chemistry, particularly when well stirred in a martini glass (gin only, of course). However, I have come to enjoy and look forward to these updates.
However, I feel there are certain types of questions that are appropriately handled in a “talk only” manner, particularly philosophical and conceptual concerns that don’t necessarily require visualization.
Your most recent Martini Hour (Episode 005) included a discussion of RGB, CMYK, and LAB and how they properly work with . . . blending modes? Conceptually, I could follow the discussion, but without visuals I remained fuzzy at best about the actual meaning of your words.
Thanks Deke and Colleen for your inspiring work!
Remiss63
http://remiss63.blogspot.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/raimist
Nice
They almost have that Beatles on the crosswalk thing going on… keep working with ‘em deke… lol
Doing the hustle
That looks like Colleen, leading the gang in the “hustle” if I’m not mistaken (which I often am).
Right girl, wrong dance
That is the Temptation Walk as you will no doubt discern immediately when you see it in motion.
That’s great feedback Remiss
We’ve been talking about what we should do and not do for Martini Hour and your feedback is really helpful. dekeOtonoians, I’d love to hear about what you like (cocktails, mythological references, my correcting “the master”) and like less (concepts that aren’t translating to audio only for you) about Martini Hour.
Always nice to get feedback
Have you tried out the lynda.com videos? If you’re spending that much time watching/listening to podcasts, you might find that you learn buckets from the integrated commercial training. Podcasts are great, but over the last decade, I’ve really come to believe that follow-along training results in the best comprehension and retention.
(I see now that I asked you that before, but you didn’t answer, so I don’t know.)
Glad you didn’t hate Martini Hour. It’s always nice to hear that we surpassed expectations!
And no, no rapping. (Tho if I may disagree with you, I didn’t rap in “101 Tips.” That was free verse. Rap requires syncopation and rhythm, neither of which were on display in “101 Tips.”)
Thanks for your detailed comments, Andrew!
off topic, PSW
I just realized that Deke is not on the roster for Photoshop World in Boston. Very sad to hear. Will you be there Colleen?
No PSW for me either
I won’t be going to Boston for PSW either. Sorry to miss the Boston peeps. If you’re looking for a good session, check out our good friend Katrin Eismann.
Dunno where to put it and ask but…
... here it goes since its related to dekepod :)
I remember a dekepod where you explained how to scan and print money for personal use (within the boundaries) and using it for personal artworks. Now, i want to ask if there is a way to do the similar thing with CS4 (since imageready isnt longer inside the newer versions of photoshop :()
You said “if there’s will, there’s a way”, and i cant find a way, can you help me? :)
Scanning Money
Hi Zilla, When I first saw that podcast I had CS3, and imageready doesn’t ship with that either. Anyway, I toiled away at it for some time with the same prompt every way that I tried. “YOU CAN’T Scan Money Bonehead”. But, being as tenacious as I am I did in fact find a way.
And here it is. Scan the money. Save the file as a .jpg and in the Adobe Bridge select the file, and open it in Camera Raw (Shortcut: ctrl r) the image will open up in Raw. Of course you can make any edits here that you would like, or you can Just click on open image.
Hope this helps.
Well…
... i would mess with it a bit, but it seems scaning utilities/ scanners got smarter nowadays too. I cant even scan a bill with my Epson stylus “something” :)
I do appreciate the answer, but now i need one to fool the actual scanner too :)
Fooling the Epson
I have the Epson Perfection 3170 (oldie but a goodie) and I have to fool it too because of the auto crop feature in the Epson Scan Utility.
I use a sheet of matt black paper and lay that over the top of the object (in this case money). The scanner then scans the black paper and anything within its borders. I then crop out the object from the black and I am left with a good scanned image.
Perhaps the new scanners have bill recognition software built into them.
Speaking of Epson…
Deke et. al.,
I recently got a great new laptop to run Photoshop CS4. However, I’m noticing that the prints on my Epson R1900 come out much darker than what I see on screen. I understand that the monitor uses light and the printer uses ink, so some of this is expected. I’m also careful to use the proper color management settings (PS manages color, R1900 best printer profile for glossy paper, etc.). But the prints are still coming out roughly two-stops darker than on-screen.
I think part of the problem is that my monitor is set too bright, so I have lowered the brightness to about 75%. This has helped a little bit but I’m hesitant to lower the brightnes any more because one of the things that I like about this laptop is its big bright screen. I also notice that in general the blues and reds print close to what’s on screen but the greens are washed out and dull, never as bright as on screen.
So I have two questions:
1) Has anyone else had a similar experience with the Epson R1900? If so, how did you get the monitor/print colors to match?
2) Deke, is it possible for you to make available the Wiccan of Color file on deke.com?
I would love to do a rough calibration with the color chicklets and the skin tones but I am not a premium member of LDC so I do not have access to the files (elitists!). Thanks.
DP
Question On Sharpening.
Deke i am learning lots from your CS4 videos on Lynda.com thanks;) but every time i sharpen an image like say the (smart sharpen) the image looks nice on preview but when i click ok to apply the sharpen i see the picture goes a little blurry almost to like it was, why would that be? thanks.
What zoom ratio are you viewing the image at?
Assuming you’re using CS4, do you have OpenGL turned on?
In any case, try zooming to 100% and see if the preview and after-sharpened image don’t match. Unlike CS3, which had a tendency to make images look overly sharp (i.e., jagged) at reduced zoom ratios, CS4 has a tendency to make them look slightly softened.
I’ll address this in my “Photoshop CS4 Sharpening Images” video series when it’s released in April (or so). Look for it at lynda.com.
Thanks Deke.
Yes i am using CS4 and OpenGL is on,, but now that i zoom the image to 66% the image stays sharp after i apply the settings, it only seems to go a little blur when the percentage is at 50% or below, ok thanks and i will look out for your new video in April;)
There may be several reasons…
...why you wouldn’t see your sharpening applied to the entire composition.
-Firstly, make sure you don’t have a selection left from a previous adjustment. Sometimes you may think you don’t have a selection, but that’s because it’s hidden (Ctrl+H or Cmd+H on a Mac), or because it’s too small or even too soft to see the marching ants. Just to ensure no selection is present, hit Crtl+D (Cmd+D on a Mac) before applying sharpening.
-Not having a right layer selected. If you’re sharpening a layer that is buried under a heap of other pixel-based layers, you’re effectively hiding your adjustment. To solve this problem, either flatten your image first, or convert it into a smart object before applying sharpening.
-How big is the image? On a very large image you may not be able to notice the sharpening to the same degree if you’re zoomed far out. This is due to the fact the sharpen dialog box preview loads at 100% by default, but the zoomed-out image has to be recalculated to be properly displayed on a monitor so you’re seeing an interpolated version of your image.
-Are you sharpening a layer that has a blend mode? If you’re sharpening a top layer which is pixel-based, or even a smart object that covers the whole composition, you may not be able to see your sharpening if the layer has a blend mode.
-Are you changing the sharpening filter on a smart object? If yes, make sure your sharpening filter doesn’t have a blend mode associated with itself. That might hide its true nature (although, judging by your post that’s not the case).
-Does the layer you’re sharpening have a mask? If yes how much is the mask hiding? What about the opacity or fill opacity? Those could be taken way down so you’re not seeing the full effect of sharpening.
If, after all this you’re still having issues, send me your file and I’ll troubleshoot it. My particulars are right here.
-flyboy
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Thanks.
Actually none of the above they were already PP in RAW and i opened them up in PS CS4 just to apply more sharpening but before i sharpened i converted to sRGB i didn’t resize so it was the size of what my 10MP 40D has, but like i said when i zoom the image to 66% everything is fine with the sharpening, it only does that when i don’t zoom in past 50%;)
Oh, the anticipation
dekepod! Few more hours; I’m spazz’n’ from the withdrawals, man (must… hold… on)
Off the topic – I don’t see a thing I’d like to vote for in “deciding yer fate”. I’m talking about 3D in ‘shop. So I voted for medical stuff instead.
Personally, I find my kidneys to be butt-ugly (can I say that here?), and I’d really like to know how to touch them up. ‘Cause that’s what girls are going wild about these days. Kidneys! God forbid if I were to put a picture of my liver on my facebook instead; that’s so 2005, man.
I digress, but then where would the fun be if I didn’t? Over there in a wiener package. That’s funny by shear wiener nature.
Aaaah, nothing quite like a freshly shorn wiener nature…
iVan can-I-say-that-here flyboy
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Deke, A life long
Deke,
A life long photographer (so i’ve blown out over 50 candles!!)
Switched to iMac in the summer
Switched to Photoshop CS4 a week ago.
Bought your One To One book - genius! ( Partly me for buying it , mostly you for producing it!!)
Many thanks - enthusiastically working my way through
Cris