Olympus

Martini Hour 051, in Which Deke Discovers Our Guest Can't Even Find Matching Socks

Submitted by colleen on 4 February 2010 - 8:06am.

Despite his mismatched socks, we still trust this week's guest, photographer and author Ben Long, to be our resident expert on travel and photography, and doing the two well together. In the time I've known him, Ben has taught photography in Florence, been on assignment in Africa, and ridden his motorcycle numerous times across the Great American Southwest. I think Deke actually met him on a cruise ship. The guy is everywhere. This week's show is full of terrific tips for shooting on the road---whether you're just driving up the road to your favorite watering hole, hiking out in the wilderness, or traveling to exotic lands in search of interesting local beverages.

Here are the key areas to think about next time you're headed out on the open road: Read more » 

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Photoshop Top 40: The Final 10 Contest

Submitted by deke on 2 February 2010 - 12:30pm.



For those unaware, Photoshop Top 40 is my countdown of the most essential features in Photoshop, starting with Feature #40: Reset & Purge and working my way up to #1. And lest you think it sounds like a trivial concept ("hey gang, Feature #38 is Vector Type cuz type in Photoshop is scalable, ain't that just the swellest?"), I go into detail and share tips and tricks on every topic. For free, because my name starts with a G for Giver (not Geek, although I embrace that too).

Now that I'm poised to unveil the Final 10 Features, I thought I'd ratchet things up a notch with a contest. And not just any contest either. The best contest possible. One with a winner every week with gobs of prizes from a host of sponsors.

The Final 10

You'll need to be a member to see what's in store. Which is a lot. Read more » 

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Photoshop Top 40: The Contest Results

Submitted by deke on 27 December 2009 - 12:28pm.

Myyyy Photoshop, myyyy Photoshop, Top 40! Okay, so actually, it's the Top 3. That is, the Top 3 entries in our recent Photoshop Top 40: The Contest. I asked you to create a magnificent piece of artwork that celebrates no fewer than three of the features from my Photoshop Top 40 podcast. Happily, your response was overwhelming. Sadly, your response was overwhelming on Christmas Eve, while I and my sidekick Colleen were with our children. But eventually, we found time to review all 146 enthusiastically submitted entries. (Thank you, by the way! Nothing gets us going like a hot contest!)  From that, and with great difficulty, we have selected three winners.

I promised our choices would be purely subjective. And they are. But subjected to the things we love: Photoshop craftsmanship and creative ingenuity. And, go figure, we liked pieces that celebrated the theme of the contest, Photoshop Top 40. In other words, good art direction trumped precise execution, although our winners showed some mad skills. Read more » 

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Photoshop Top 40: The Contest

Submitted by deke on 13 December 2009 - 6:00pm.

My Photoshop Top 40 countdown continues. And now that we’ve moved into the realm of the Top 20 (drumroll please), the whole gang here at dekeOnline figured it was time for a contest. And the prizes are phenomenal!

This is no small contest. It's a grand, knock-down drag-out, show-us-your-talent contest in which three lucky winners will take home a jackpot of prizes just in time for the holidays. The Grand Prize winner in particular will receive a brand new Olympus E-620, the world's smallest and lightest image-stabilized digital SLR, as pictured below. I am seriously not kidding--someone's going to win an f'ing SLR! (You have to be a dekeOnline member to comment and participate.)

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Butterflies: My Random Adventure in Nature Photography

Submitted by deke on 12 June 2009 - 2:40am.

My goodness, I had a good time this week. While the dekeOnline version of me was pimping GridIron Flow (which I quite rightfully love) and celebrating the latest and last dekePod (now officially undead), I was secretly enjoying a few days offline with my young and fabulous boys. During which we immersed ourselves in two of my local area's finest, the Denver Zoo and the Butterfly Pavilion.

I mention this for two reasons. First, I suffer a largely unrequited passion for nature photography. Second, I engaged in the rare exercise of that very passion this week with an Olympus E-30, one of the most responsive cameras I've had the pleasure to use. Witness the cropped sample below. Click on it for the wide shot; zoom in to check out the amazing spiraling proboscis on that sucker.

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