highlights

Deke’s Techniques 012: Creating a High Key, High Contrast Effect

Submitted by deke on 22 March 2011 - 7:15am.
Deke’s Techniques 012: High Key, High Contrast

Hey gang,

As seems to occur every Tuesday, I have a new free Deke's Techniques video for you, produced by lynda.com. And it's a zinger! (Am I allowed to say "zinger" over the Internet?) In just 9 minutes, I show you how to turn an untreated studio photograph--generously provided by Jason Stitt of the Fotolia image library--into a high key, high contrast image, with ultra-black shadows but not so much as a single clipped highlight. Read more » 

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Deke’s Techniques 011: Masking Highlights and Shadows

Submitted by deke on 15 March 2011 - 9:15am.
Deke’s Techniques 011: Masking Highlights and Shadows

This week's 7-minute video shows you how to isolate the highlights and shadows from one image and blend them with those of another. It's quick, it's easy, it's effective. Read more » 

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Photoshop CS5 One-on-One: Advanced Goes Live

Submitted by deke on 16 August 2010 - 12:15am.

Some of you have been asking when my Photoshop CS5 One-on-One: Advanced series is coming out. And I was all prepared to tell you this Friday. But lynda.com, being the incredible juggernaut of a video publisher that they are, began releasing it today. Chapters 13 thru 18 are up this very second. That's more than 100 movies, so it should keep you occupied for now. (If not, I totally suck.) The remaining Chapters 19 thru 24 will be up in 10 days.

Here's a live-action frame from the series. My director told me that, in retrospect, my spendy Elie Tahari shirt "looked a little disco." Let me assure you that this is one of the best shirts I've ever owned. It's a matte forest green with some excellent under-collar and inner-sleeve highlights. In the video, I don't look disco, I look positively wet. Meaning that I glisten. Like someone is misting me. Which is not necessarily what you want in a training video. But it's what you get.

Advanced

That said, who gives a tinker's gumph what I look like? Read more » 

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Photoshop Top 40, Feature #9: Levels

Submitted by deke on 16 February 2010 - 12:15am.
Feature #9: Levels

Feature #9 is my favorite adjustment command: Levels. Adjusted only slightly since its introduction in Version 1.0, this seminal feature lets you set the black and white points, as well as correct the midtones without harming either. It refrains from clipping colors unless you tell it to. It boasts Photoshop's first on-board histogram. And it works as well in CMYK and Lab as in RGB.

(Well there's another clue for you all.)

We had nearly twice as many entries last week as the week before, with 19 of you correctly guessing Levels or some variation. The winner is earthrat, whose guessed "Using Levels to work." Congrats to earthrat!

Now it's time to guess Feature #8. Hint: It's the ultimate convenience tool. All members have been sent an email invitation with a URL to enter the contest. (No direct URL this time around.) Join dekeOnline now to receive a reminder and an invitation to next week's contest!
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Photoshop Top 40, Feature #26: Dodge and Burn

Submitted by deke on 20 October 2009 - 12:04am.
Feature #26: Dodge and Burn

Just three features ago, I demonstrated the Liquify filter, which I described as "one of Photoshop's great destructive retouching tools" (see Feature #29: Liquify). The words one of implied that more were on the way, as they are, starting this week with two tools that recently rose like twin Pheonix from the ashes, dodge and burn.

Like Liquify, D&B permanently modify pixels in the interest of making those pixels look better than when they started. Both are brushes. The dodge tool brushes in brightness; the burn tool brushes in darkness. Read more » 

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