Gulliver's Travels

Each week, when I write up my thoughts about the Free Deke Technique of the Week on the lynda.com blog, I like to consider how these often whimsical techniques might actually be used on files other than the ones Deke provides. While trying to think of a project appropriate for the week leading to St. Patricks Day---a day when we here in the states turn the solemn observance of the death of the patron saint of Ireland into an excuse to drink copious amounts of Guiness---I stumbled back over the Photoshop "miniturization" effect that Deke created last year.

And I thought, "If I could apply this to a travel photo from a trip to Ireland, I could make some sort of tenuous connection between that awesome tilt-shift video of Rio de Janeiro that made the viral rounds during Carnivale last month and Johnathan Swift's story in which Gulliver encounters the Lilliputians (you know, the only part of Gulliver's Travels that I ever even knew about until I read the book in grad school, because up until then, I'd only seen the cartoon)." 

What does this have to do with St. Patrick's Day? Well, I'm applying the effect to a photo I took in Ireland, of course. And Mardi Gras is another holiday we use as an excuse to drink. And Swift was Irish. All of this should be obvious. Plus check out the mundane before and delightful after of my formerly banal photo of Listowel, County Kerry (a place where, as far as I know, St. Patrick was never alleged to have worked any miracles):

Here's a step-by-step of how Deke's technique applied to my particular photo: Read more »