Deke’s Techniques

Your weekly quick-fix of Deke, with ideas you may inspire or inform your own projects.

Removing Power Lines with Photoshop

Deke uses a handy trick in Photoshop to almost instantly remove power lines from a photo.

Make Coloring Book-Style Placecards in Illustrator

Deke does a final riff on his Thanksgiving placecard project, by making coloring-book style generic people your guests can customize.

Create Place Cards for Your Holiday Dinner Guests in Illustrator

Deke celebrates Thanksgiving (or any dinner party, really) by creating custom place cards in Adobe Illustrator.

Frame a Photo with a Path and a Custom Brush in Photoshop

Deke uses a custom brush he made last week in Photoshop to create a rough-hewn frame for a photo of a cute little varmint.

Creating a Custom Dual Brush in Photoshop

Deke combines two very different brushes to create a custom dual brush in Photoshop.

Turn Day into (Halloween) Night

Deke turns a daytime scene into a haunted mansion in Photoshop.

Create a Bat-Faced Moon for Halloween in Photoshop

Deke begins his multi-episode celebration of Halloween by creating a moon with a sinister smiley face made of adorable bats.

Islamic Design 5 Coloring and Sculpting

In this week's free Deke's Techniques we finally complete our journey to recreate this Tunisian stained-glass window, born in Africa, revealed in Amsterdam, glimpsed in London, and finished today in Illustrator (and then Photoshop).

Islamic Design 3, Connecting the Pieces

In this week's free Deke's Techniques movie we continue our travels into the mesmerizing Islamic pattern inspired by a lovely Tunisian stained glass window.

Islamic Design Part I, Flirting with Geometric Genius

Today Deke's Techniques begins a multi-week journey from Tunisia to Amsterdam to London to Colorado to wherever you are, courtesy of Deke's quest to replicate this 19th-century Arabic patterned stained glass window he came across in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Creating the Perfect Smartphone Home/Lock Screen in Photoshop

In this week's free Deke's Techniques episode, Deke shows you (or your kids, more likely) how to make a custom home screen for your smartphone. Yes, this does mean a pixel-perfect Photoshop rendered image designed expressly for the screen size of your phone.

Wrapping Text around a Graphic in Adobe Illustrator

Hello, my wonderful denizens of dekeLand. Sorry for the delay in yesterday's Deke's Techniques episode. We had some issues with the sample file, and since the sample file is so darned charming, I wanted to wait to be able to share it. (In fact, it's so darn charming, I'm making it available for download.)