Sebastopol, CA—Digital imaging master and unlikely crooner Deke McClelland tenders an original new love song to kick off the next round of his popular video podcast series, dekePod. Titled "The Droplet Song (A Love Song to a Lost Feature in Photoshop)", Deke's goofily romantic new tune honors one of Photoshop's most arcane but useful automation features.
Why devote a romantic ballad to Photoshop?
"I wanted to kick off the new round of dekePods with a kinder, gentler Deke. And what better way to do that than with a love song? A love song that just so happens to be about a Photoshop automation feature called droplets," explains Deke, author of over 80 books and a popular lecturer on Adobe Photoshop and the larger realm of computer graphics and design. Sponsored by O'Reilly Media and lynda.com, Deke's all new, sentimental yet laugh-out-load music video not only entertains, but also captures the intense enthusiasm essential to most (if not all) creative endeavors.
"The thing about droplets is that they're actually really useful, but there's virtually no documentation about them, which makes our music video one of the rare training pieces on the topic. And even though it's wrapped up in this over-the-top love song, the way you make a droplet, my recommended settings, and how you use the finished product are all there," adds Deke, the creator of O'Reilly Media's bestselling One-on-One book and video series. "I wrote the melody and lyrics, and my buddies at The Jellybricks put together the music. Someone showed me a few videos from 1960s folk singer Rod McKuen, and everything fell into place."
Adds Deke: "In my One-on-One books for O'Reilly, I lay out all kinds of step-by-step techniques, many of which you'll find yourself using on a regular basis. And anything that you do regularly can be recorded as an action that you can then save as a droplet. Then you drag a collection of image files onto that droplet, and just like that, you have batch processing. It takes some planning and some troubleshooting, but the results can be extremely satisfying. And amazingly, everything I just said is documented in lyric and verse in 'The Droplet Song.'"
You can start learning about droplets by watching "The Droplet Song" at digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2009/03/18/dekepod-droplet-song.html. This new dekePod music video is available for immediate download, sharing, and also reposting on O'Reilly, iTunes, blip.tv, YouTube, and deke.com.
For those excited by computer graphics and eager to learn, but weary of tediously dull training videos, dekePod delivers precisely the opposite. "In general, dekePod is an experiment in anti-training," notes Deke. "The videos are entertaining enough to work independently of their content. But every one of them packs a solid technique. The technique goes by quickly, but we take painstaking care to make sure every step is there. The surrounding stories provide context and the humor provides fun."
dekePod is produced in San Francisco by Flying Moose Pictures (moosepix.com) with sound by Potrero Post (potreropost.com). "The Droplet Song" music by The Jellybricks (thejellybricks.com).
About Deke McClelland
One of the most award-winning technology writers, Deke McClelland is a popular lecturer on Adobe Photoshop and the larger realm of computer graphics and design. He hosts the instructional videos that ship with Photoshop CS4 and Illustrator CS4, as well as hundreds of hours of tutorial-style video training for industry leader lynda.com, with whom his work has won nine industry awards in the last 12 months. In addition to his video work, Deke has written over 80 books translated into 24 languages, with more than 4 million copies in print. In 2004, Deke created the bestselling One-on-One book series. Published with O'Reilly Media, One-on-One uses video, step-by-step exercises, and hundreds of full-color illustrations to provide readers with the closest thing possible to private instruction from a recognized expert.
Additional Resources:
To view "101 Photoshop Tips in 5 Minutes," see:
digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2008/06/24/dekepod-101-photoshop-tips.html
For more information about dekePod, see:
digitalmedia.oreilly.com/dekepod
About O’Reilly
O’Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, and conferences. Since 1978, O’Reilly Media has been a chronicler and catalyst of cutting-edge development, homing in on the technology trends that really matter and spurring their adoption by amplifying “faint signals” from the alpha geeks who are creating the future. An active participant in the technology community, the company has a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism.