Transform

This week, I show you how to make a synthetic rainbow, one that actually looks like an actual one, in Photoshop. If I were a silly little girl, I might posit the rainbow in back of a magical prancing unicorn. But I'm a silly little boy, so I set it in back of a highly aggressive, man-eating shark.

"Pardon?" I here you say. "How do you put a rainbow in back of a shark??" Watch the video and find out.

In the meantime, here's the official description from lynda.com: Read more » 

Welcome to Halloween! And today's scary technique, in which I show you how to make that vector-based craft that's sweeping the nation: Scareflakes! Here's a detail:

They're like snowflakes, in that every one is beautiful and unique. But they scare the poop out of you! (Just look at the image above. Admit it, you're pooping in fear!)

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

This week marks my favorite Deke's Techniques so far, in which I show you how to create an ambigram, which is a word that reads the same whether the page is right-side up or upside-down. Here's what we're about to make:

Don't you just love animated GIFs that play forever and ever? Me neither, but I figured it was important to employ one in this case. Because the first time you see it, it's like what? The second time, it makes sense. And then after that, it gets very annoying. Consider it a test of your ability to concentrate. From now on, IGNORE THE SPINNING THING!

Meanwhile, a word of warning: Even at nearly 12 minutes long, this video goes by fast. If I had it to do over again, I would have slowed a few steps. But that's the nature of blog videos. Once they're out there, they're out there. Still, it's cool. And you can always pause, back up, and replay.

(Ye gads, my favorite Deke's Techniques so far requires a lot of apologies. I'm so sorry. Ope, there I go again!)

Here's the official description from my video publisher lynda.com, which comes to you entirely without my (come to think of it) idiotic qualifiers: Read more » 

Hey gang. Tonight finds me at Photoshop World in Las Vegas. Earlier today I taught my four-hour "precon" workshop, Photoshop 3D Fundamentals, and I'm happy to report, it was a scintillating sold-out success. Afterward, I had a beer with a member of the Photoshop 3D development team who filled me in on some upcoming developments. I can't share details, but it all sounded very encouraging. (Suffice it to say, it sounds like everything I pissed and moaned about in either my session or my Photoshop 3D videos for lynda.com is begin addressed.)

I mention this because, well, it means that I'm getting around to posting this week's Deke's Techniques many hours later than normal. Fortunately, the technique is worth the wait. This week, I show you how to design a magically updating pattern in Illustrator. The movie (which itself is quite magical) is a kind of two-parter. In the first three and a half minutes, I show you how to fill a page with a repeating pattern using Illustrator's best and most powerful dynamic effect, Transform. After that, I show you how to update the entire page by editing a few base path outlines. Along the way, I integrate another dynamic effect, Roughen.

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