From the course: Deke's Techniques (2018-2021)
702 Object blends and dynamic distortions in Illustrator
From the course: Deke's Techniques (2018-2021)
702 Object blends and dynamic distortions in Illustrator
- Hey, gang, this is Deke McClelland. Welcome to Deke's Techniques. Now, this week, we're going to take that artwork that we refined last week inside Adobe Illustrator which contains a bunch of object blends that are cutting through and slicing across each other, and we're going to roughen up the edges using what I call path wigglers, but officially, they're known as dynamic distortions, and a great thing about this is that even though object blends were first introduced in Illustrator 88 back in 1988, dynamic distortions came along in Illustrator 9, many years later. These two features are entirely compatible with each other so we have a live, editable piece of artwork. Now, specifically, we're going to be working with two commands, Tweak, and Zig Zag, and in case you've ever wondered how these features work, I'm going to show you exactly how they work in this movie. All right, here's the final version of our various dynamic distortions, just so you have a chance to see it on screen. We're going to start off inside this file, the one that we created last week, although I will admit to having modified the color scheme. All right, the first thing I'm going to do is turn off the black letters layer here inside the layers panel, just so we can better see what we're doing, and I'm going to start things off with the P, so I'm going to press the A key to switch to my white arrow tool, and then I'll click in this region down here and in this case, I ended up selecting an entire blend, the one that begins with the yellow Z, and that's not what I want, but the reason it happened is that I clicked on its drop shadow, so, I need to move my cursor over a little bit and click right about there, in order to select this entire P shape and now, I'm going to distort it by going up to the Effect menu, choosing Distort & Transform, and choosing Tweak. And what Tweak does is it moves around the anchor points and the control handles randomly inside of a given range. So for example, if I switch to Absolute, and then change both the horizontal and vertical values to five points, then Illustrator is allowed to move these various guys, the anchor points, and the control handles, is what's meant by Control Points here, by as much as five points, either up, down, or left or right. Now, it's not in fact moving them. It's moving them dynamically, and it is a random effect, by the way, which is why if I turn on the preview checkbox, my effect and yours will look slightly different. At which point, I'll go ahead and click OK to apply that effect, and notice, even though it's only selecting this first path, the one down here at the bottom, all the other paths in the blend are updating in kind, and to show you what that looks like, I'm going to press the V key to switch to the black arrow tool and then I'm going to click on this yellow P in the top left corner of the art board, and I'll go to the select menu and choose Inverse, in order to select everything else instead, and then I'll go to the object menu, choose Hide, and then choose Selection, or you have that keyboard shortcut of Control + 3, or Command + 3 on a Mac. And that way, we can see the entire P blend here, and notice that it starts off very tweaked down here at the bottom, and becomes less and less distorted as we move toward the yellow P. All right, just so we can really see what's happening here, I'm going to bring back the other blends one at a time by twirling open the blends layer here inside the Layers panel, and then I'll scroll down here to the bottom and I'll turn on this guy which is the rear L as well as this one, which represents the side of the L by itself, so to show you what I mean, I'll go ahead and turn off the big L for a second. That's just the back of the L, and here's the front. All right, so we're just going to distort the back of the L by once again pressing the A key to switch to the white arrow tool and clicking right about here, in order to select this shape, so you should just see a partial shape like so, at which point I'll go up to the Effect menu, choose Distort & Transform, and this time, I'll drop down to Zig Zag, which pretty much does what it says, if I turn on the Preview checkbox, you can see that the path is now zigging and zagging back and forth. I don't want quite that much action. I do want Absolute to be selected. Otherwise, if you select Relative, you're going to work with percents, which is a little harder to predict, so I'll go with Absolute and I'll take this guy down to six points and I'll set the ridges per segment value to three, and that is ridges per each one of these real segments, by the way, so we're just going to have a few ridges in these long segments, and then they're going to get very spiky indeed inside the short segments. All right, I want my points to be smooth points, so we have some waving transitions here, at which point I'll click OK in order to accept that change. And now I'm going to move this path outline over a little bit and the reason is, that you can see the undistorted shape in the background, and so assuming that my keyboard increment is one point, I'll press Shift + Left Arrow twice in order to move that shape 20 points to the left and then I'll press Shift + Down Arrow once to move it 10 points down, and it looks like that's a little bit too far. I'm starting to reveal this thing right here in the background, so, I'll press the Up Arrow key to nudge that guy up until I can no longer see the L shape behind it. All right, now I'll just go ahead and press Control + Shift + A or Command + Shift + A on the Mac in order to de-select my artwork and I'll press Control + 0 or Command + 0 on the Mac to center my zoom. All right, now let's bring back the blends associated with the U. I'll start with this very front blend, up here at the top of the blends layer, and I'll go ahead and click right about there with my white arrow tool, to select the rear U and then I'll go up to the Effect menu and I'll choose this guy, Zig Zag dot dot dot, which is going to allow me to repeat the Zig Zag effect and enter new values. And so I'll go ahead and choose that command, turn on the Preview checkbox. You can see that's way too much, which is why I'm going to take that size value down to just a single point like so, which gives us a little bit of a wave over the course of that blend, so we don't have any distortion at the beginning and then the steps become progressively more and more distorted, at which point I'll click OK to accept that change. Now I'm going to bring back the other parts of the U, which include this guy right here, which is the central area, and this guy as well, and I'm going to press the V key to switch to my black arrow tool, and I'll select this blend and then Shift + Click on this one to select it as well, and I'm going to repeat that last effect over the course of two entire blends by choosing this very first command from the Effect menu, Apply Zig Zag, which is just going to repeat my last settings. Now, Zig Zag, by the way, is not a random filter, so your effect and mine are going to be one and the same. Now, all of these effects are dynamic, incidentally, which means you can change your mind any time you like by going up to the Window menu and choosing the Appearance command, which is going to bring up this Zig Zag item right here. All you have to do is click on it in order to revisit your settings, then turn on the preview checkbox and then I can take this guy up to, let's say, three points, and we get much more of a pronounced effect. I could also take down my ridges per segment value if I want to, and that is going to reduce the number of zigzags. I don't want to do either of those things, however, so I'm just going to cancel out to accept what I have. And there you have it, that's how you combine object blends which were first introduced in Illustrator 88 about a hundred years ago, with dynamic distortions, and in the end, we'll achieve this effect here. Now, if you're a member of Lynda.com/LinkedInLearning, I have a followup movie in which I show you how to apply yet another dynamic distortion in the form of the roughen effect inside Illustrator, and so for the sake of comparison, I've gone ahead and separated out these letters here. We have the P, which is subject to the Tweak effect as we saw in this movie, L is subject to Zig Zag, and then, as we'll see in the followup movie, E is subject to Roughen, so if nothing else, I think you'll find it very useful to know exactly how these dynamic distortions work. If you're looking forward to next week, I'll show you how to apply two dynamic warp distortions once again inside Illustrator, in the form of Fish and Twist, applied to these two letter Zs. Deke's Techniques, each and every week! Keep watching.
Practice while you learn with exercise files
Download the files the instructor uses to teach the course. Follow along and learn by watching, listening and practicing.
- 669_custom_QR.zip
- 670_more_QR.zip
- 671_hidden_circles.zip
- 673_shade_panels.zip
- 672_more_rectangles.zip
- 674_cafe_wall.zip
- 675_skewed_walls.zip
- 676_magic_checkers.zip
- 677_magic_dots.zip
- 678_reverse_illusion.zip
- 679_illusion_decor.zip
- 680_more_gizmos.zip
- 681_connect_gizmos.zip
- 682_wifi_symbol.zip
- 683_bluetooth_logo.zip
- 684_trajan_color.zip
- 685_trajan_AIcc.zip
- 686_stylistic_PsCC.zip
- 687_stylistic_AIcc.zip
- 688_grad_molecules.zip
- 689_sharper_moles.zip
- 690_smart_cules.zip
- 691_explore_cules.zip
- 692_blend_cules.zip
- 693_high_pass_cules.zip
- 694_cell_pattern.zip
- 695_hemoglobin.zip
- 696_edgy_cells.zip
- 697_springy_cells.zip
- 698_accordian_letters.zip
- 699_skew_blends.zip
- 700_cross_blends.zip
- 701_slice_blend.zip
- 702_blend_distort.zip
- 703_dynamic_roughen.zip
- 704_fish_twist.zip
- 705_dynam_bgnd_1.zip
- 706_dynam_bgnd_2.zip
- 707_quieter_art.zip
- 708_disintegration.zip
- 709_more_flakes.zip
- 710_mask_ashes.zip
- 711_flakes_to_ash.zip
- 712_note_tool.zip
- 713_contour_map.zip
- 714_contour_grad.zip
- 715_contour_arb.zip
- 716_contour_riff.zip
- 717_smooth_contour.zip
- 718_contour_cash.zip
- 719_color_of_money.zip
- 720_AI_adjust.zip
- 721_computer_key.zip
- 722_key_type.zip
- 723_faux_hedcut.zip
- 724_hedcut_lines.zip
- 725_color_hedcut.zip
- 726_ET_moon.zip
- 727_ET_trees.zip
- 728_ET_TRex.zip
- 729_global_glow.zip
- 730_content_aware.zip
- 731_space_portal.zip
- 732_enhance_portal.zip
- 733_rushing_stars.zip
- 734_AIcc_puppet.zip
- 735_puppet_tricks.zip
- 736_complex_puppet.zip
- 737_puppet_shortcut.zip
- 738_pentagons.zip
- 739_reinhardt.zip
- 740_kershner.zip
- 741_james_pentagon.zip
- 742_rice_pentagons.zip
- 743_stein_pentagon.zip
- 744_15th_pentagon.zip
- 745_tessellate_15.zip
- 746_pentatiles.zip
- 747_mod_pattern.zip
- 748_complement_tiles.zip
- 749_image_pattern.zip
- 750_pattern_fit.zip
- 751_candy_keeper.zip
- 752_keeper_text.zip
- 753_monster_movie.zip
- 754_mono_halftone.zip
- 755_word_haunted.zip
- 756_cheat_letters.zip
- 757_alt_adjust.zip
- 758_scuba_mono.zip
- 759_backscatter.zip
- 760_sample_outside.zip
- 761_Ps_vector_logo.zip
- 762_trans_shapes.zip
- 763_photo_logo.zip
- 764_high_res_snow.zip
- 765_enhance_snow.zip
- 766_snowflake_bokeh.zip
- 767_mandala_ps.zip
- 768_mandala_pattern.zip
- 769_mandala_dots.zip
- 770_mandala_color.zip
- 771_mandala_final.zip
- 772_AI_trim_view.zip
- 773_AI_presentation.zip
- 774_global_edits.zip
- 775_global_control.zip
- 776_freeform_grads.zip
- 777_freeform_lines.zip
- 778_freeform_gotcha.zip
- 779_great_white.zip
- 780_sharper_shark.zip
- 781_vibrance_sat.zip
- 782_vib_sat_sharp.zip
- 783_hedcut_action.zip
- 784_action_actions.zip
- 785_color_lines.zip
- 786_combine_lines.zip
- 787_clip_to_group.zip
- 788_color_outside.zip
- 789_flip_horizontal.zip
- 790_white_walker.zip
- 791_walker_begins.zip
- 792_digital_shave.zip
- 793_deep_wrinkles.zip
- 794_deep_brows.zip
- 795_pale_lips.zip
- 796_glowing_blue.zip
- 797_lifeless_pupils.zip
- 798_cold_gloomy.zip
- 799_brittle_flakes.zip
- 800_trans_shapes.zip
- 801_range_mask.zip
- 802_flip_photo.zip
- 803_actual_dream.zip
- 804_augment_dream.zip
- 805_smart_distortions.zip
- 806_blend_distortions.zip
- 807_star_negative.zip
- 808_star_pattern.zip
- 809_shaded_stars.zip
- 810_grad_pattern.zip
- 811_pattern_fade.zip
- 813_gobstopper.zip
- 814_gobpattern.zip
- 815_galignment.zip
- 816_etched_lines.zip
- 817_blend_pattern.zip
- 818_cubical_holes.zip
- 819_grad_pattern.zip
- 820_iso_arrows.zip
- 821_position_tips.zip
- 822_fill_gaps.zip
- 823_cartoon_teeth.zip
- 824_triangle_eye.zip
- 825_add_windows.zip
- 826_perfect_tessellate.zip
- 827_triangle_tunnels.zip
- 828_triangles_pattern.zip
- 829_colorful_triangles.zip
- 830_recolor_triangles.zip
- 831_rainbow_blends.zip
- 832_pattern_blends.zip
- 833_imposs_trident.zip
- 834_shade_trident.zip
- 835_opposing_grads.zip
- 836_trident_shadows.zip
- 837_impossible_hex.zip
- 838_impossible_lattice.zip
- 839_Joan_Miro.zip
- 840_watercolor_wash.zip
- 841_Miro_signature.zip
- 842_Photoshop_Miro.zip
- 843_enlarge_Miro.zip
- 844_Miro_Peele.zip
- 845_color_Us.zip
- 846_red_rorschach.zip
- 847_finish_Us.zip
- 848_CAF_fails.zip
- 849_turkey_2019.zip
- 850_trace_hand.zip
- 851_articulated_hand.zip
- 852_colorful_hand.zip
- 853_paint_fingernails.zip
- 854_paint_turkey.zip
- 855_turkey_feathers.zip
- 856_drop_shadow.zip
- 857_Ps_iPad_1.zip
- 858_Ps_iPad_2.zip
- 859_Ps_iPad_3.zip
- 860_iPad_Sidecar.zip
- 861_Adobe_Fresco.zip
- 862_Fresco_halftones.zip
- 863_live_brushes.zip
- 864_oil_paint.zip
- 865_Fresco_masks.zip
- 866_repurpose_mask.zip
- 867_vector_brush.zip
- 868_fresco_ps.zip
- 869_auto_color.zip
- 870_ACR_pano.zip
- 871_correct_pano.zip
- 872_diffusion.zip
- 873_simplify_2020.zip
- 874_fill_gaps.zip
- 875_posterize.zip
- 876_paint_bucket.zip
- 877_nonD_poster.zip
- 878_dynamic_poster.zip
- 879_filmstrip.zip
- 880_awful_awesome.zip
- 881_rembrandt.zip
- 882_recolor_freeform.zip
- 883_recolor_group.zip
- 884_over_under.zip
- 885_dev_over_under.zip
- 886_3D_metal_star.zip
- 887_heavy_metal.zip
- 888_wonder_poster.zip
- 889_wonder_displace.zip
- 890_wonder_woman.zip
- 891_metadata_template.zip
- 892_edit_metadata.zip
- 893_quilt_warp.zip
- 894_warp_object.zip
- 895_gopro_images.zip
- 896_content_aware.zip
- 897_gopro_combo.zip
- 898_blend_vignette.zip
- 899_photo_painting.zip
- 900_cue_ball.zip
- 901_pool_ball.zip
- 902_stripe_ball.zip
- 903_transform_each.zip
- 904_recolor_pool.zip
- 905_pool_cues.zip
- 906_rotate_cues.zip
- 907_repeat_face.zip
- 908_rainbow_faces.zip
- 909_mask_lips.zip
- 910_single_many.zip
- 911_symmetrical_mask.zip
- 912_colorize_grads.zip
- 913_mask_grads.zip
- 914_lantern_type1.zip
- 915_lantern_type2.zip
- 916_lantern_type3.zip
- 917_blend_steps.zip
- 918_blended_blends.zip
- 919_reverse_order.zip
- 920_pattern_colors.zip
- 921_blend_pattern.zip
- 922_polygons.zip
- 923_equil_triangle.zip
- 924_mercedes.zip
- 925_star_ring.zip
- 926_perfect_star.zip
- 927_lets_review.zip
- 928_basic_shapes.zip
- 929_triangle_man.zip
- 930_paint_grads.zip
- 931_adv_grads.zip
- 932_trans_vectors.zip
- 933_free_distort.zip
- 934_dynamic_fx.zip
- 935_cats_eye.zip
- 936_cat_iris.zip
- 937_primitives.zip
- 938_zig_zag.zip
- 939_dynamic_hilight.zip
- 940_reptile_scales.zip
- 941_shade_eye.zip
- 942_variable_shade.zip
- 943_dragon_eye.zip
- 945_single_thumbnail.zip
- 946_ai_home.zip
- 947_unlock_object.zip
- 948_unlock_icon.zip
- 949_line_tool.zip
- 950_broken_candy.zip
- 951_candy_rhino.zip
- 952_wrap_pattern.zip
- 953_ice_shadows.zip
- 954_illustrator_ipad.zip
- 955_pencil_points.zip
- 956_ipad_blob.zip
- 957_ipad_pen.zip
- 958_grads_repeats.zip
- 959_color_grading.zip
- 960_grading_tricks.zip
- 961_blend_balance.zip
- 962_font_height.zip
- 963_camera_profile.zip
- 964_JPEG_raw.zip
- 965_match_detail.zip
- 966_Ps_line_tool.zip
- 967_troubleshoot_line.zip
- 968_blend_vectors.zip
- 969_curve_line.zip
- 970_point_glyphs.zip
- 971_area_glyphs.zip
- 972_snap_glyphs.zip
- 973_snap_letterform.zip
- 974_glyph_shape.zip
- 975_glyph_pen.zip
- 976_playing_cards.zip
- 977_scale_shape.zip
- 978_card_suits.zip
- 979_enhance_path.zip
- 980_power_symbol.zip
- 981_huge_artboard.zip
- 982_new_artboard.zip
- 983_triceratops.zip
- 984_pen_tricks.zip
- 985_round_corner.zip
- 986_draw_round.zip
- 987_reshape_round.zip
- 988_AI_brushed.zip
- 989_AI_rivets.zip
- 990_blend_grad.zip
- 991_binoculars.zip
- 992_blue_halo.zip
- 993_bi_aberrations.zip
- 994_hide_shapes.zip
- 995_subwoofer.zip
- 996_deep_cone.zip
- 997_gradient_frame.zip
- 998_hex_screws.zip
- 999_thats_all.zip
Contents
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669 Customizing a QR code in Photoshop11m 22s
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670 Adding more color to your QR code4m 29s
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671 Coffer illusion and the hidden circles18m 10s
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672 Filling out the hidden circles illusion9m 30s
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673 Shading the panels in a Coffer illusion13m 1s
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674 Drawing a classic “café wall” illusion11m 20s
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675 Skewing your crazy café walls in Illustrator9m 25s
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676 Creating a “magical checkers” illusion20m 8s
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677 Swapping magical checkers for dots8m 35s
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678 Reversing the direction of your illusion8m 33s
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679 Decorating your illusion9m 47s
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680 Adding more and more gizmos11m 52s
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681 Connecting the gizmos wirelessly4m 59s
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682 Drawing a Wi-Fi symbol in Illustrator9m 48s
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683 Drawing the official Bluetooth logo10m 8s
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684 Introducing Trajan Color Concept13m 10s
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685 Trajan Color Concept in Illustrator CC7m 10s
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686 Using stylistic sets in Photoshop CC9m 37s
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687 Using stylistic sets in Illustrator CC6m 47s
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688 Creating gradient molecules in Photoshop10m 17s
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689 Sharpening your very soft molecules4m 41s
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690 Editing your smart-filtered molecules6m 32s
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691 Exploring regular molecule patterns17m 41s
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692 Blending opposing rows of colorful molecules8m 49s
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693 Sharpening molecules with High Pass6m 3s
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694 Creating shimmering cells in Illustrator12m 25s
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695 Turning regular hexagons into organic cells11m 50s
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696 Enhancing your organic cells in Photoshop8m 58s
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697 Making dead cells spring to life7m 41s
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698 Creating letters with accordion extrusions13m 58s
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699 Combining object blends with skews11m 28s
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700 Making one object blend cut through another9m 44s
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701 Making one object blend slice across another13m 27s
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702 Object blends and dynamic distortions in Illustrator8m 11s
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703 Another random distortion: Roughen7m 57s
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704 Dynamic warp distortions: Fish and Twist8m 52s
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705 Adding a dynamic background, part 110m 14s
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706 Adding a dynamic background, part 27m 44s
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707 “Quieting down” an overly elaborate design9m 25s
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708 The Marvel disintegration effect9m 14s
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709 Building up more flakes and ashes7m 33s
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710 Enhancing and masking your disintegration8m 12s
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711 Turning your flakes into dull, dead ash4m 10s
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712 Jogging your memory with the Note tool9m 59s
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713 Contour mapping with Distort > Displace10m 23s
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714 Contour map + gradient map6m 54s
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715 Contour map + arbitrary map8m 22s
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716 Riffing on a contour map in Photoshop5m 24s
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717 Smoothing out jagged contour lines4m 11s
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718 Contour mapping for cash in Photoshop9m 27s
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719 Infusing an image with the color of money2m 53s
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720 Simulating an adjustment layer in Illustrator9m 25s
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721 Drawing a stylish computer key12m 9s
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722 Spelling a word in computer keys6m 55s
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723 Creating a faux hedcut in Photoshop13m 7s
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724 Tracing outlines around your hedcut7m 47s
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725 Creating a full-color hedcut effect7m 32s
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726 Creating an E.T. moon in Photoshop8m 42s
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727 Adding a forest of trees for your E.T. moon10m 41s
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728 Combining the best of E.T. and Jurassic Park10m 59s
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729 Tracing vectors with a universal glow6m 17s
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730 Creative uses for Content-Aware Fill11m 47s
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731 Creating a porthole to a far-away galaxy7m 42s
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732 Enhancing your crazy space porthole7m 3s
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733 Creating a galaxy of rushing stars5m 42s
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734 Using the Puppet Warp tool in Illustrator CC6m 7s
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735 Illustrator Puppet Warp tips and tricks7m 20s
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736 Puppet-Warping very complicated selections6m 18s
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737 Shift-P for Puppet Warp!2m 59s
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738 Introducing the Pentagon Patterns7m 29s
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739 Types 1–5: The Reinhardt pentagons14m 17s
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740 Types 6–8: The Kershner pentagons5m 47s
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741 Type 10: The James pentagon5m 53s
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742 Types 9, 11, 12, and 13: The Rice pentagons7m 58s
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743 Type 14: The Stein pentagon3m 53s
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744 Creating a type 15 pentagon in Illustrator9m 27s
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745 Tessellating your type 15 pentagon14m 22s
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746 Expressing pentagons as proper tile patterns12m 9s
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747 Applying and modifying a tile pattern11m
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748 Combining complementary patterns7m 43s
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749 Combining a tile pattern with a photograph6m 33s
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750 Adjusting a tile pattern to fit its photo5m 36s
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751 Creating a creepy Candy Keeper in Photoshop3m 59s
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752 Enhancing the Candy Keeper text4m 46s
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753 Creating an old monster movie poster7m 3s
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754 Adding a monochrome halftone effect4m 3s
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755 Enhancing a special word, such as “Haunted”4m 27s
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756 Cheating letters into an ancient border2m 25s
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757 Naming an adjustment layer as you create it4m 13s
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758 Under the sea in strict monochrome6m 29s
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759 Backscatter and split toning7m 21s
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760 Sampling any color outside Photoshop3m 17s
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761 Designing a vector-based logo in Photoshop9m 20s
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762 Free-transforming shape layers7m 56s
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763 Adding a photo element to your vector logo6m 34s
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764 High-resolution snowflakes in Photoshop5m 45s
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765 Enhancing your big, juicy snowflakes7m 19s
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766 Adding a snowflake bokeh “on the lens”6m 8s
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