We’ve previously covered 14 hours of free video tutorials for Creative Suite 5, plus three hours for Lightroom 3 – so here’s a chance for Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements… Below the experts share how to get started, the basics of the programs, new features, plus their favorite tips and techniques. Most of the lessons will work for either version 8 or 7. All together there is five hours of free content, spanning over 50 chapters.

The majority of the videos were produced by Lynda.com, which is another excellent source of online tutorials (some free, some paid), and just released a new app for software training on the iPhone.

If you need a copy of either Elements product for your work, just download a free trial.

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Over the next six weeks Adobe is launching a new series of in-depth online seminars to learn the best and get the most out of some top CS5 products, including InDesign, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, and Flash Professional…

The presentations are 90-minute live “deep dives” with Adobe product experts where you can get firsthand detailed information on the new features of these releases, see demonstrations, and get direct answers to your questions. All sessions are from 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM ET on upcoming Tuesdays, and will be presented in English:

Deep Dive: Adobe Illustrator CS5
Tuesday, July 13, 11:30am – 1:00pm US/Eastern
Complimentary Registration

Deep Dive: Adobe InDesign CS5
Tuesday, July 27, 11:30am – 1:00pm US/Eastern
Complimentary Registration

Deep Dive: Adobe Flash Professional CS5
Tuesday, August 10, 11:30am – 1:00pm US/Eastern
Complimentary Registration

Deep Dive: Adobe Premiere Pro CS5
Tuesday, August 24, 11:30am – 1:00pm US/Eastern
Complimentary Registration

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OK, so your old computer is running out of gas, you’re upgrading or changing systems, adding a new machine, or switching from a PC to a Mac, or vice versa — and you want to move over your purchased Adobe CS5 (or CS4 or CS3 or other) software — what do you do, and how do you do it?

As we’ve covered previously here, you are generally allowed to install and activate most Adobe software on up to two computers, with the restriction that the software can not used on both systems at the same time. So right off the bat, you might be good to go with installing the software on a second computer, although you may wish to double-check the licensing agreement for your product to be sure.

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As we reported last month, Adobe is working on a Lightroom-related app for Apple’s iPad – but since it may be a while before we see it being released, in the meantime here are some handy presets to export/publish your photos to the iPad for use as a presentation device or display portfolio…

On the iPad, images will look better if they are saved, sent, and displayed at the size of the iPad’s screen rather than having iPhoto or the iPad resize them down. Also the iPad won’t automatically fill the entire screen with an image if its aspect ratio is different from the iPad’s screen size – instead you’ll get black bars at the edges (similar to a letterboxing effect).

So the two free presets linked here take these factors into account, and it’s your choice which of them to use… The first preset will preserve all photos at original size and aspect ratio (and the iPad will automatically add black bars to adjust at the edges), and the second preset will fit the photos to the full iPad screen (by automatically doing a center-based crop in Light­room when it exports).

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Knowing how to make a good mask is one of the most important things you can learn to do in Photoshop. With accurate masks you can completely control the placement and movement of all the elements of your image. The techniques shared in these new videos will help you get the most out of the new masking capabilities in Photoshop CS5… And when you combine them with the new content-aware fill feature to magically fill backgrounds of moved or deleted objects, well then you’ve really got something.

The first video is a two-part playlist, New Masking Basics: Get up-to-speed with the great new masking tools and techniques in Photoshop CS5, to quickly and easily create professional quality masks.

The second video, to the right, also plays in two parts – New Advanced Masking: Learn some of Photoshop guru Russell Brown’s favorite methods for masking out the background from a really difficult image.

The third and final video is Advanced Motion Blur Masking and Blending: This tutorial will get you through the toughest motion blur with flying colors… Also learn some advanced blending tips and techniques.

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Adobe Lightroom 3 is only days old, yet it’s quickly getting rave reviews across the net… Expert Reviews gave it five stars, writing: “The best just got better. Whether you’re a profes­sional photographer or enthusiast, Adobe Lightroom has quickly become the must-have managing and pre-processing software. With version 3 just released, there’s even more reason to rush out and buy it. The powerful lens correction profiles and amazing noise reduction, combined with excellent management make this a tool that all photographers should have.”

And there is already a wealth of free learning resources available… Here are some good ones:

• Lightroom 3 New Features
• System Requirements for Adobe Lightroom
• Direct Download Links for Lightroom 3 Trial
• Lightroom 3 Installation and Setup
• The Lightroom 3 Workflow
• Adobe Lightroom 3 Keyboard Shortcuts (PDF)
• Digital Camera Raw Support for Lightroom 3
• New Video Support in Lightroom 3
• New Lens Profile Support in Lightroom 3
• New Tethered Camera Support in Lightroom 3
• Lightroom 3 Online Help and Documentation
• Adobe Lightroom 3 General FAQ

Also out is an excellent in-depth series of free online Lightroom 3 video tutorials, approaching three hours in running time and produced by Adobe Lightroom expert Julieanne Kost. There are ten chapters with a range of topics and techniques covered:

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Puppet Warp is one of the coolest new features in Creative Suite 5. Think about taking an element of your image, setting some control points, and then “physically” manipulating it in any way that you want. Obviously this works well with figures – you could swing a raised arm to a person’s side in a photo, or make a family shot a little bit tighter on the grouping… But how about other applications, like stretching or winding text or handwriting or a plant or a musical score to create new effects? Or maybe just something simpler like easily adjusting the relative alignment of the different elements in your composition. It could be any­thing really – a lot of new possibilities out there with this feature for superior manipulation of still images.

To get your ideas flowing, we’ve got two new video tutorials below with fundamental and advanced techniques for Photoshop’s Puppet Warp, courtesy of Adobe’s Russell Brown. In the second video, Content-Aware Fill even makes an appearance, working in synergy with Puppet Warp to combine their power. The tips shared below will help you get the most out of these new capabilities, and if you like you can get started with a free trial download today.

For full-screen viewing, click the expand icon and then 480p after pressing play on each thumbnail:

How are you going to be using Puppet Warp? Share your creativity in the comments below…

See reviews of Puppet Warp and other aspects of Photoshop CS5… Or for more great videos on what’s new in Creative Suite 5, check out www.cs5.tv

This is one of the most common questions we get, and the answer may pleasantly surprise you… The place to look to find the answer is the Software License Agreement, also called the EULA. This agreement governs the use of your Adobe product, and is translated into 28 languages within each document. It also covers some basics about product activation.

So, in general, how many systems can you install Adobe software on, including CS5? The answer for individuals (as opposed to businesses) in most cases is two. The catch is that both computers must be used only by you and the two systems cannot be used at the same time. This policy was designed so that you could run (say) Creative Suite at home on your desktop PC, as well as while travelling with your laptop. But the types of computers and their usage has blurred so much now that you can just pick any two you own and the product will install and properly activate on both. For CS5 the two machines must also be of the same operating system platform (Windows/Mac), because the software is licensed and delivered for use on a specific platform.

For example, here is the key text from the EULA for Photoshop CS5:

2.5 Portable or Home Computer Use. Subject to the important restrictions set forth in Section 2.6 [having to do with volume licensees], the primary user of the Computer on which the Software is installed … may install a second copy of the Software for his or her exclusive use on either a port­able Computer or a Computer located at his or her home, provided that the Software on the port­able or home Computer is not used at the same time as the Software on the primary Computer.

So there’s your answer for most current Adobe software, although we recommend confirming for your particular product or suite (including Creative Suite, Acrobat, Lightroom, Elements, etc.), and version (CS3, CS4, CS5).

If you need more than one computer running the software at the same time, you might want to take a look at the online discounts and maintenance simplification available through Adobe’s new Volume Licensing Store.

Adobe has just put out a couple of very helpful resources if you’re running into any issues downloading or installing CS5 products… If you’ve hit a snag, these are some of the first places you might look (after confirming CS5 system requirements for Windows or Mac):

Fix download issues with the Download Manager

CS5 software packages are quite large (the full Master Collection suite is ~5 GB), so Adobe uses the Akamai Download Manager to facilitate their download. If you’re having any trouble installing or running the Download Manager, see the FAQ for this topic. If nothing happens when you click the product’s trial download link, or a blank win­dow or coffee cup icon appears, or a “File not found,” “server not found,” “Windows cannot open this file,” or “add-on disabled” message appears, then see this page to solve your problem. There’s also more general download help.

[UPDATE (May 25th) – If you need to, you can bypass the Akamai Download Manager entirely by downloading your software using our new CS5 Direct Download Links.]

If it’s easier or if you prefer, you can order a trial DVD set for any of the CS5 suite editions: Design Premium, Web Premium, Production Premium, or Master Collection, and it will be delivered to your home or business… A DVD set can serve as your backup media if you choose to purchase at the end of 30 days, or you can have a full product box delivered to you when you purchase and simply use that serial number to convert the trial you already installed.

Fix installation issues with Creative Suite products

There are several good resources for solutions. The Adobe Support Advisor (ASA) can analyze your install logs and identify errors generated during unsuccessful Adobe Creative Suite 5, Creative Suite 4, or Creative Suite 3 product installations. The ASA provides information about documentation for these installation known issues, and it expedites the troubleshooting process by generating files that you can upload, if necessary, to an Adobe technical support agent.

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There are hundreds of new features and functions in Adobe’s Creative Suite 5, but perhaps the most talked-about is Photoshop’s Content-Aware Fill – which allows you to move or delete content and Photoshop will automatically and intelligently fill in the space left behind. We’ve written about it before here with the quote, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” [Arthur C. Clarke]

But does the real feature live up to its advance billing?

While it’s not perfect and doesn’t always do what you hope or imagine (after all, it’s still just a computer), generally in practice it still does amazingly well – and often unbelievably so. And we have a handful of new videos here to illustrate, thanks to Terry White and Russell Brown. The tips and techniques shared below will help you get the most out of this capability.

The first video covers the best new features in Photoshop CS5 generally, including three great examples of Content-Aware Fill in action… The second, to the right, introduces the concept of Content-Aware Rotation – magically filling in the missing parts to the background of a rotated image with Content-Aware Fill. The third one develops the technique of Wire Removal with Content-Aware Healing – easily removing unwanted lines and wires from your images. And the last video shows how to create Content-Aware Patterns – discovering creative ways to accurately control, and create, patterns with Content-Aware Fill.

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