Why I’m A Fan of….

Deke McClelland

I’m not going to type out, or copy and paste what other people have written, as I’ve pointed out on a number of occasions, I’m too lazy. Instead I’ll stick to giving you links for that bit.

Who Is Deke McClelland?

O’Reilly publish Deke’s books, they have a piece about him  here. 

Lynda.com have his online/DVD training series’. More here.

National Association of Photoshop Professionals Hall of Fame here.

Ok, so you get the idea, he’s done a bit and achieved a bit.

Why I’m A Fan of Deke McClelland

If you have watched PhotoshopUserTV for a while, you’ll remember Deke doing a guest apperence (Episodes 101 and 102). The tutorial was How to Give a Man Laser  Goggles. Yep, laser goggles. It was as insane as it sounds and stood out like a sore thumb, but I would have been disappointed by anything else. As the tutorial finished I thought, “how on earth are The Photoshop Guys going to follow that?”. You know I don’t remember how or if they did, but I remember the tutorial like it was yesterday. (Tutorial from Photoshop CS4 Channels and Masks One-on-One)

 

Deke’s enthusiasm is contagious, so often I have gone through someone else’s tutorial series and had to watch one again because I lost concentration, or I’ve actually fallen asleep. Not with Deke at the helm though, its just too damn entertaining.

That’s one of Deke’s methods, the more the bizarre and entertaining the more likely you are to remember it, but there is another method. A method that I can think of no other trainer using, but it, for me, is the real reason I am a fan of Deke’s.

If you watch a series by Deke you’ll get to know him, his wife, his family, even that he bought a push a long train set back in the 80s. The use of personal photographs, be it of his sons or from a family vacation allows us, the humble trainee to connect in a personal way. Sit through the entire Lynda.com series and you feel like you know him. Deke allows us in, telling us people’s names, where the photo was taken, who else was there, all stuff we don’t need to know but makes us more part of the lesson. Deke doesn’t know me from Adam, but I feel like he’s my friend.

Recently Deke has resurrected DekePod, the “once every 2 weekly podcast”. Don’t try and follow along, but do concentrate! Deke uses images during his monologue that tie in with particular words, and utter nonsense that actually makes sence in the context of the podcast, “But cobble on we must, the children need shoes”. Then the tutorial, quick-fire “click this, slide that” and bam, its done, no noncence honest to goodness entertaining teaching.

Ok, I have rambled on, time for an intermission, you may have seen this before, but I am sure you want to see it again. DekePod number 2 101 Photoshop Tips in 5 Minutes, enjoy.

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Deke’s latest podcast, running alongside Dekepod, is Martini Hour.It’s audio only and you may, like I did, have frown on your face and saying “audio? audio? Really?” but, it works. You can picture him and Colleen Wheeler in the bar, with the Pim’s Quartet in the background chatting away about all things digital image. A non visual, all about visual, podcast, only in Deke’s mind would that have made sense. 

 

Deke’s latest blog has news that he has finished “Photoshop One-One-One Andvanced” for Lynda.com, great news, I am looking forward to it.

And that’s why I’m a fan of… Deke McClelland

Thank you Deke, for making Photoshop such a pleasure to get to grips with.

 

And Finally:

While you wait for Deke’s new series, why not check out Corey Barker’s new one. Creative Integration with Photoshop and Illustrator;

“we will explore numerous ways you can harness the power of both Photoshop and Illustrator to create eye-popping graphics. This course will appeal to designers, artists, and even photographers who want to take their images to that next level”

Corey Barker, Planet Photoshop

Looking forward to going through this one.

 

Thank you so much for your feedback, as a newbie bogger it is really apreciated. One visitor asked why the links bought up the new page in this one, it was annoying as he liked to have TipSquirrel open all the time.

Firstly, thank you, thats a real compliment.

I have made all links open in a seperate window now, thank you for highlighting that as a problem.

Thats Friday, and the week, done. Whatever you are doing over the weekend I hope you enjoy it.

Stay safe. Play hard. See you Monday.