Deke’s Techniques 363: Develop a Portrait of Your Little Joker

363 Developing a photograph of The Joker

In this week’s free Deke’s Techniques video, our Halloween homage continues as Deke takes a scarily washed out iPhone photo of an otherwise awesome costume (and model) and turns it into something suitably sinister.

As you can see in the image on the right below, Sam’s got the attitude and the make up to really pull of his supervillain alter ego. But the lighting, image quality, and happy suburban kitchen background spoils the ominous mood a bit.

But with help from Photoshop CC’s Field Blur filter, Deke manages to turn the comfortably domestic background into something much more mysterious. Then, he uses Camera Raw applied as a smart filter (another CC wonder) to enhance and energize the photo.

Our little Joker, before and after enhancing the iPhone portrait.

If you’re a member of lynda.com, you can watch an exclusive movie this week in which Deke shows you how he created those creepy character lines in Sam’s face to take him from a kid in a costume to a truly frightening mini-villain. If you’re not a member of lynda.com and would like to check it (along with over 360 other Deke’s Techniques out), you can get a free week’s trial by signing up at lynda.com/deke.

Happy Halloween, my creepy dekeSters! No joke.

Next entry:Deke’s Techniques 365: Creating a Political Poster in Illustrator

Previous entry:Deke’s Techniques 360: Turning Yourself into a Dark Elf for Halloween (or Just Because It’s Tuesday)

  • Freelance police

    I want to believe Deke named his kids after the famous cartoon dog and rabbit detective duo. He would go up even further in my esteem if that was the case. :D

Be the first to drop some wisdom...