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Photoshop Top 40, Feature #29: Liquify

Feature #29: Liquify

The Liquify filter is one of Photoshop's great destructive retouching tools. (Of which we'll see more before this countdown is out.) Meaning that it permanently modifies pixels--no fancy parametric adjustments for this one!--in the name of making the subject of your photograph look her or his best.

Notice that I positioned the feminine pronoun first; that was not by accident. These days, Liquify is used to tweak virtually every professional glamor shot on the planet. It is, in fact, the Auto-Tune of professional portrait photography. So much so that, during a presentation by a notorious photographer and retoucher, an equally notorious female colleague of mine leaned over and whispered, "If he takes one more anorexic model and turns her into a stick figure, I'm going to go up there and kick him in the f*cking nuts." Read more » 

Making Interlocking Rings with Live Paint

Colleen's posting about Mordy's license plate thing reminded me of a timely newsworthy conversation I'd had with Mordy a few months ago that went something like this:

Me: Mordy, hi.

Mordy: Hi, Deke.

Me: Hey, just curious. Why is it Adobe Illustrator lacks the ability to make interlocking objects?

Mordy: Crazy. Lay it on me.

Me: You know, like the Olympic rings. I want one Olympic ring to loop into, around, and back out of another. Like in the Olympics.

Olympic rings

Mordy: Yeah, Illustrator does that. Read more » 

Illustrator CS3 1on1 box art

Illustrator CS3 One-on-One

Entering its third decade, Adobe Illustrator CS3 remains the most popular and viable vector-drawing program for a simple reason: It’s the best. It offers powerful transformation and reshaping functions, excellent control over text and gradients, and the best color management and print controls in the business. But the learning curve is steep. From the moment you draw your first square, Illustrator demands your full and absolute attention. Enter Illustrator CS3 One-on-One, your crash course on everything there is to know about the program. Read more » 

List price: $149.95USD