Never let it be said that Deke’s not a man who continues to think about, possibly even (occasionally) obsess over, his past projects. If you tuned in a few weeks ago, you saw his Photoshop filter-based recipe for turning a standard portrait into a dot drawing. Well, turns out there is another way to approach the project that yields more satisfying dot-like results and a higher resolution image (as long as you’re willing to sacrifice editability), which Deke reveals in this week’s free Deke’s Techniques episode. Check out the difference a few weeks and a willingness to make destructive edits can make:

And here’s a detail comparison of the two approaches, with the older one on the left and the new (dare I say, improved) on the right:

I know, you’re shocked there’s more than one way to approach a problem in Photoshop! You’re shocked that Deke might obsess over things! You’re shocked that Deke might actually use a command called Rasterize Smart Objects! You’re actually shocked that anyone would be shocked.

Anyway, if you’d like to follow along but would not like to go back and start with the old technique, click here to download the starting point image that Deke uses this week. (Note that both portraits are contained within the smart object, so it’s a big healthy file.)

And remember if you’d like to spend several hours watching Deke’s Techniques 2013, 2012, or 2011, you can get a free week’s trial at lynda.com/deke.