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Ask anyone at Adobe what distinguishes Photoshop from every other image-editing program, app, or digital blip on the planet, and they'll tell you "masking and compositing." Apparently you agree, because my video course Photoshop Masking & Compositing: Fundamentals is tearing up the planet over at lynda.com. It's N-to-the-1-to-the-L-D-C, as the dope kids say. As if I'd know.

Naturally, I'm gratified. (Thanks very much, btw!) Plus, it emboldens me to report: Today I and my beloved video publisher release another installment in the series, Photoshop Masking & Compositing: Advanced Blending. The image below might make it look exacting and academic. Which it is. But it's also expansive and practical. Because it tells the ultimate post-processing story: How to paint without permanence, create without consequences, and, in the end, mask without masking. In short, how to assemble photorealistic artwork through the pure power of artistic thought. It really is that good.

This is a short course, just 4 hours, and yet it manages to comprise 9 chapters. Here they are: Read more » 

As those of you who follow this site know, I'm working on a four-part series of videos for lynda.com on the topic of making 3D art in Photoshop CS5 Extended. My first course, Photoshop CS5 Extended One-on-One: 3D Fundamentals is due to go live next Tuesday, March 29. (Update: It's live now!) And I just finished recording Part 2 of the series, 3D Objects, today. Below you see the final project from my latest work, Chapter 12: "Advanced Repoussé," created, dressed, and rendered entirely in Photoshop. (The text is not part of the project. It's just hype for the course.)

On a completely unrelated note, NAPP president Scott Kelby recently invited me to contribute to his Guest Blog Wednesday. Naturally, I said yes. And it comes out today!

But here's where these stories meet up: My guest post for Scott is all about 3D in Photoshop CS5 Extended. It's inspired by the first chapter of my 3D Fundamentals course. And it was produced by lynda.com. Seriously, it's like some kind of giant gas planet converged . . . with itself. And that planet is Saturn. Read more » 

This week's clip show features me repeatedly telling two of the most knowledgable Adobe Illustrator gurus on the planet that I don't know squat about Illustrator. (I've probably mentioned that more times than I've explained that Deke's new book, Adobe Illustrator CS5 One-on-One, is taking over our lives and requiring us to compile clip shows.) But how can I still claim to know nothing when I get to hang out with Deke and Mordy Golding for several episodes of the show? Mordy, the one time Adobe Product Manager of Illustrator, is that guy that Deke likes to go to when tiny gaps in his copious Illustrator knowledge requires him to probe the brain of someone he trusts. Can an Illustrator Ignoramus do any better?

Here's how we kick off what I'm unofficially calling "Illustrator Celebration Month in the dekeLounge," also known as "Learn Something Already, Colleen." Read more »