In this week’s free Deke’s Techniques video, Deke finally wraps up the MDNA-inspired photo that we’ve been working on for the past two weeks, by showing you how to create the vertically striped text at the bottom.

There are also two exclusive movies at lynda.com this week. The first shows you how to reshape the letterforms to match the intervals of the pattern you apply. The second shows you how to swap one photographic image in this project for another. If you’re not a member of lynda.com, you can get 10 free days to check it out by going to lynda,com/deke.

Why so short and sweet this week, Colleen? Well, Deke and I have hauled all our progeny to Cayman Brac for a scuba-diving spring break this week. And both my surface time and bandwidth are limited. But in celebration of Deke’s new course and to prove to you dekeOphiles that he never stops working, even underwater, here are some photos of Deke with his nose (and GoPro) to the grindstone.

In the second photo, there is virtually no info in the red channel, so when I get off the island, maybe I’ll revisit these images with a little bit of Enhancing Underwater Photos with Photoshop with Deke McClelland. Blub, blub!