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Today, I unveil a series of three sequential contests that I'm calling Deke's Techniques: The Challenge, in which I invite you to create a training movie for me. The first contest, which begins today, July 17, and lasts for two weeks (ending Tuesday, July 31) is the Photoshop Challenge. So, naturally, I'm asking for a technique created, at least in part, in Photoshop. (You can use other programs as well if you like.) Two finalists and one Grand Prize winner will receive a buttload of prizes.

Your movie has to reference, however obliquely, at least three of my existing Deke's Techniques. And so, by way of a proof of concept, I present you with my submission, in which I transform a little lemon of a Yugo into a fiery hot rod. And I do so using, not three Deke's Techniques, but five!

No movie can be longer than 10 minutes, so I burn through the process very quickly, possibly more quickly than even an adept Photoshop user will be able to follow. But that's okay for two reasons: First, I give you permission to move quickly through your technique as well. (You may need to!) And second, I include six follow-up movies, available for free at lynda.com/dt, that explain the entire process at a reasonable and followable speed.

Here's the official description from lynda.com: Read more » 

Have you ever noticed that an awful lot of Photoshop experts spend an awful lot of time doing an awful lot of stuff to pictures of cars? As an equal-opportunity image editor, I've never quite understood the car fixation. (I own a Jeep. So, seriously, I'm lucky to put gas in the damn thing.) "But, you know," I thought one enlightened afternoon, "Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm the guy who's spending too much time on image stacks and 3D type and ink drawings and synthetic starfields and artificial wood grain and stereoscopic imagery and fake monsters. Maybe I should jump in a jalopy, roll down the windscreen, and edit a car."

And so this week I have. In fact, I do the most typical thing imaginable: I change a car's color. Only in the least typical, and most reliable, way that there is.

Here's the official description from lynda.com: Read more » 

Hey gang. This week's Deke's Techniques videos are all about adding text and shapes to a 3D stereoscopic photograph, like the one created in last week's technique. In today's free movie, I show you how to add text and shapes at different planes of depth. In the follow-up video at lynda.com, I show you how to tilt the text and shapes so they incline in 3D space toward the viewer.

Here's the official description from lynda.com: Read more » 

As I write this, I've published 20 hours of video training on the topic of 3D imaging in Photoshop. (For those who may be curious, it begins with the 5-hour Photoshop CS5 Extended One-on-One: 3D Fundamentals, about which you can learn more at lynda.com.) These movies are all about creating photorealistic 3D artwork from scratch. But what if you're not interested in 3D artwork? What if you want to create 3D photographs? Well then you're in luck, because that's precisely what this week's technique is all about.

Remember those old View-Master images? It's like that, only with glasses. Plus loads of fun and really easy.

In today's free video, I show you how to shoot two photographs---one for each of your naturally stereoscopic eyes---using a standard single-lens camera. And then I assemble them in Photoshop so that the composite image appears in everyday-average lifelike depth when viewed through a pair of red-cyan glasses, like the ones pictured below, provided by Fotolia.

Red, white, and blue. What a fitting day-after-Fourth-of-July tribute! Meanwhile, here's the official description from lynda.com: Read more »