deke

Some of you have expressed interest as to when (or even if) my final course, Photoshop CS6 One-on-One: Mastery, will go live at my beloved video publisher lynda.com.

First, let me assure you that it will and I am almost done recording the damn thing.

Second, I thought, gosh, I might as well give you a sneak peek into what's in store. There's plenty of exciting stuff---Lighting Effects, Adaptive Wide Angle, animation, and video editing---not to mention a new take on high dynamic range, better known as HDR.

Most of the HDR tips and tricks I've seen present the feature as something like digital magic. (I myself have been guilty of this crime.) But this time I'll be rolling up my sleeves and showing you how this weird and semi-fantastical feature actually works. For example, did you know that, under the right circumstances, you can indeed create an HDR portrait shot?

Using myself as the proverbial guinea pig, I was able to take the following pedestrian portrait shot (captured ever-so-deftly by my buddy Lucas Deming; the pedestrian aspect is altogether my fault):

And transform it into this lustrously volumetric image using Photoshop CS6's enhanced HDR Pro module, entirely without the assistance of Liquify, the Healing Brush, or any selective retouching:

As many of you know, HDR Pro requires multiple shots captured at different exposures. (This began as a three-shot bracketed series, btw.) So how do you manage to capture a living, breathing, flinching human being under such conditions? Answer: Very carefully. Read more » 

Well, gang. I went and did it. Despite considerable efforts to the contrary, I lived to see my fiftieth birthday.

Happily, the event randomly coincides with my fiftieth course for lynda.com, the very recently released Photoshop CS6 Beta Preview.

Last Thursday, some of my friends threw me a grand party that started at 7pm and didn't stop until we had drained three mini-kegs, two cases of champagne, a big vat of some yummy Hendricks-based cocktail, two bottles of tequila, and a bottle of my favorite Scotch, Lagavulin. Thereby proving that while I may be old, and my liver may be older, I'm not dead yet.

Along the way, they presented me with two of the best presents I've ever received: an interstate sign to celebrate the birthday and a highway sign to celebrate the course. They're full-sized and made of real metal. Isn't that clever?

Plus, they wrote special messages all over the backs, as pictured below. My favorite: "50 years and just 50 titles? Hope your next 50 are a little more productive." Awww.

Tonight, a fancy dinner. Tomorrow, off to Hawaii with my boys. After that, back in the driver's seat, if only to lose myself on the highway of life.

So for some reason, as long as he and I have been friends, I've decided that Deke's birthday is March 28th, which it isn't. Unfortunately, it's two days earlier, which means it always looks like I forgot. Someone please remind me next year on March 24th. 

Meanwhile, I'll mix up a batch of belated birthday martinis for my understanding, good-looking, super-talented, and not-all-that-old, best friend Deke!

dekeSpeak
The Newsletter of Things Deke: February 22, 2011

Hi all, Read more »