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According to a 2018 Pew Research poll, over 50 percent of YouTube users—which accounts for 35 percent of all U.S. adults—are there to learn how to fix a leaky pipe, make a perfect omelet, master a video game, and use Photoshop to fix an old photo among many others things. And those were the numbers before covid!
Long Island’s Marty Geller, creator of the YouTube channel Blue Lightning TV was a little ahead of the curve. He posted his first how-to video on YouTube on October 25, 2011. And since then, he’s created over 820 video tutorials on various photo projects using Adobe Photoshop that have garnered over 101 million views. With 984,000 current subscribers, Geller is expecting to hit one million this year.
That first video was about how to meld two celebrities (Miley Cyrus and Taylor Lautner, in this case) into one to see what their adult child might look like. This was something Geller had done to great acclaim as a bit, “If They Mated,” for Late Night with Conan O’Brien on NBC.
“I know ‘If They Mated’ was the most popular of all the graphic bits used,” recalled Geller of his 14-year-long stay at Late Night.
“In the middle of the afternoon they would do a run-through to review different bits [before the taping],” reminisced Geller. “For me, the most pleasurable part of the whole thing was the audience reaction; it felt like a warm wave going over my body. When the audience exploded in laughter, Conan was thrilled. It was the satisfaction that I did my job and I did it well.”
With a degree as a graphic artist, Geller started in the industry in the mid 1970s, mostly doing graphics for network and local news stations, and eventually became Graphics Lead and Head Designer for WNBC's promotions department in New York City before taking the job with Conan O’Brien.
Early retirement beckoned in 2010, and for about a year after, he worked on restoring 19th century and early 20th century paintings—until the art market went soft and his son-in-law (who happens to be Travis Hardman, co-owner of Daily Voice's parent company Cantata Media) recommended he do a tutorial on something.
Thus, Blue Lightning TV, a name harkening back to the retro days of television, was born.
“There wasn’t much competition when I started,” added Geller.
And while competition has risen, Blue Lightning TV remains a top draw not only because he's easy to follow, but, in part, no doubt, because Geller takes time to answer questions from his viewers.
“I take every viewer seriously and to heart,” he said.
There definitely will be questions as Photoshop, powerful as it is, is not necessarily known to be user-friendly for the newbie.
“My tutorials are 95 percent project-based: This is what we’re going to create and this is how you’re going to do it,” explained Geller. “I always assume that the viewer will not know a whole lot of Photoshop. It’s a very fine line balancing between not boring more advanced users and not glossing over features or steps that a novice might not know.
“I try to create images that are complex-looking, that an average non-artist would say, ‘I can’t do that,’ but they can do it after a 10-minute video.”
Geller’s most popular tutorial to date is about how to make a photo look like a pencil drawing. The video published on May 11, 2013 went viral and has 6.6 million views at this point.
The tutorial he is most proud of, however, has to do with animating a still photograph.
“It’s a photo of a waterfall and I used the animation feature in Photoshop to illustrate what it would look like. It got 57,000 views and came out very well.”
Blue Lightning TV, with new weekly tutorials Sundays or Mondays, keeps Geller busy, but it doesn’t detract from his other post-NBC career: making and selling posters—award-winning posters.
“I split my time between Photoshop and doing my own designs,” he explained. “That’s completely creative for me and freeing.”
He specializes in posters that recreate looks of various 20th century art genres: art deco, psychodelia, surrealiasm, and, especially, Bauhaus, a school of art which began in Weimar Republic Germany. His best-selling poster is a Bauhaus one that is so well done it is has been mistaken as being an original made in 1923.
Geller's posters are sold by various merchandising companies, including Urban Outfitters.
“There’s great satisfaction that people like my work enough to display it in their homes or offices, to actually hang it in their personal spaces.”
Geller has no plans to cut back on either of his pursuits.
“I just keep doing my thing.”
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