Deke’s Techniques

Your weekly quick-fix of Deke, with ideas you may inspire or inform your own projects.

Photoshop Top 40, Feature #38: Vector Type

Type in Photoshop is forever editable and super-smooth. Deke shows how it works by assembling a high-resolution, professional-quality magazine cover in one short video.

Photoshop Top 40, Feature #39: Layer Comps

Feature #39 is layer comps, which let you assemble multiple image variations or even independent pieces of artwork inside a single Photoshop file. One palette gives you the freedom to explore.

Photoshop Top 40, Feature #40: Reset and Purge

There comes a time in every countdown's life when it must begin. And this is it: Feature #40 in the epic list "Photoshop Top 40," devoted to fixing Photoshop when it misbehaves.

Introducing Photoshop Top 40

America likes its lists, and here is one. Deke's Special Countdown of the 40 best features in Photoshop. Who will be #1?

Something New This Way Comes

Next week, dekePod shifts gears to something completely different. In the meantime, here's a blast from the past: Circa 2006, in fact. Back when money had value, bless its sweet heart. And we all had means.

The Andy Warhol Silkscreen Effect

Want to emulate Andy Warhol's silkscreen effect? Warhol created art as a mass consumable, like a t-shirt or pack of gum. Meaning, he *wanted* you to replicate it. Join Deke as he dissects Warhol's process, digital style.

Photoshop & the Visual Communications Makeover

We don’t all speak English, and tourism is a huge industry, so signs need to be language-independent. This is why immediately identifiable symbols are such an essential ingredient to good visual design, and indecipherable symbols result in commercial art catastrophes.

Photoshopping the Great Masters

There is no objective standard of beauty. In fact, the very definition of beauty shifts from one generation to the next. Want proof? Watch a 16th-century honey turn into a 21st-century hottie in this dekePod.

Photoshop and the Lost Undersea Channel

Underwater photos often lack a Red channel -- which is where things like coral, clown fish and our skin tones hang out. Fortunately, Deke knows how to summon Red from the watery depths and make your photos come alive.

Photoshop vs. Adobe Bridge: Beware the Cache, the Cache Must Die!

Ever shot or peeked at a photo you'd rather not share? Then beware: Photoshop's companion, Adobe Bridge, records everything you do to a potentially dangerous cache.

The Mating Habits of the Pen Tool

Adobe's landmark pen tool ranks among its most powerful but least understood features. And yet it all hinges on this: anchor points are boys, control handles are girls. It's not a drawing tool, it's a mating ritual.

The Droplet Song (A Love Song to a Lost Feature in Photoshop)

Save it as a droplet. Then drag a file and drop it. Just drag a file and drop. So goes the chorus to a silly little love song that'll make your automation dreams come true.