Adobe has just put out an excellent resource updated for CS5 / CS5.5 – a free printing guide in the form of a 140-page downloadable e-book. Earlier versions of this have been out for previous releases (see the older CS4 and CS3 links below), but now this is fully refreshed and upgraded for the latest versions of the products.

This very handy tome will tell you everything you ever need or wanted to know about getting great print results with your projects in Photoshop CS5 (including Extended), Illustrator CS5, InDesign CS5/CS5.5, and Acrobat X Pro. All the different tools, setups, settings, options, functions, and formats – what they mean and how to best use them to achieve your goals.

Adobe describes it as, “learn the best ways of handling and preparing CS5 and CS5.5 files for print with this in-depth technical reference, designed especially for printers and production artists” – but anybody who would like a tutorial on how to print and generate the most optimal output from their designs can gain something here…

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Even years after it went up, a lot of people still don’t know about it.

We’re talking about the free online documentation for all Adobe software – a set of manuals that can answer quite a few user questions, and be a great resource if you don’t own a product yet but want to find out more about it.

It exists in searchable and discussable form for all major Adobe applications, including the Creative Suite, Lightroom, Acrobat, Photoshop Elements, etc. – for all recent releases on both Windows and Mac OS.

For example, at least once a week we receive a question on how to save back to earlier versions from InDesign CS5.5… Fortunately, this is answered in the “Saving Documents” section in InDesign’s online manual.

Each reference is downloadable as a complete e-book if you so desire (more about this below)… the substantial “Using Adobe Photoshop CS5” guide is nearly 600 pages alone!

Also helpful is the ability to post comments and questions & answers on the individual documentation pages, in case something’s not entirely clear.

Here are the direct links to the references:

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A special gift for our readers: For a limited time, we’re offering a download of the Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 Guide ebook, with 13 chapters and 95 pages of visual tutorials and feature how-to’s, completely free for personal use… And the vast majority of it will apply to the new Photoshop Elements 10 as well.

This e-book is a great overview and introduction to PSE 9, and covers a lot of helpful material for getting started with the product or learning more skills if you’re already familiar. You won’t find this book anywhere else.

The download is 4.7 MB in size, in PDF format (get the free and better Adobe Reader X, if you haven’t already).

If you don’t yet own Photoshop Elements 9, just download the fully-working trial from Adobe to run it for free for 30 days. Much of the training in the book will be relevant for older and newer versions of PSE as well.

See what’s new in Photoshop Elements 9 – including layer masks, photo style-matching, and even some content-aware fill functionality borrowed from Photoshop CS5…

If you currently have an older version of the software, you might be interested in a nice chart with the differences between Photoshop Elements 9 vs. 8 vs. 7 vs. 6.

Or, if you also like to learn by video training, check out these four hours of free video tutorials for Photoshop Elements 9, or alternatively for Photoshop Elements 8 or 7.

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A special gift for our readers: For a limited time, we’re offering a download of the Adobe Premiere Elements 9 Guide ebook, with 9 chapters and 78 pages of visual tutorials and feature how-to’s, completely free for personal use… And the vast majority of it will apply to the new Premiere Elements 10 as well.

This e-book presents a nice overview and introduction to PRE 9, and covers a range of helpful material for getting started with the product or learning more skills if you’re already familiar. You won’t find this book anywhere else.

The download is 3.9 MB in size, in PDF format (get the free and better Adobe Reader X, if you haven’t already).

If you don’t yet own Premiere Elements 9, just download the fully-working trial from Adobe to run it for free for 30 days. Much of the training in the book will be relevant for older and newer versions of PRE as well.

See what’s new in Premiere Elements 9 – including easier import, terrific new audio tools, better sharing, and now available for Mac…

If you currently have an older version of the software, you might be interested in a handy chart with the differences between Premiere Elements 9 vs. 8 vs. 7 vs. 4.

Or, if you also like to learn by video training, here’s close to an hour of free video tutorials for Premiere Elements.

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The fine folks over at Que Publishing, who have over thirty years of experience writing good books about software and technology, have put out a free sampler edition of their new series of books on learning Adobe Creative Suite 5… This “CS5 on Demand” e-book runs 172 pages (11.3 MB to download, in PDF format) and includes five full chapters on Photoshop, Dreamweaver, InDesign, Illustrator, and Flash Professional.

This collection has been designed to teach CS5 through step-by-step tutorials with easy-to-follow instructions, to be rich in illustrations for those who want to learn visually, and to be complete and in-depth references for those seeking a trusted desk resource to quickly provide the answers you need.

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[UPDATE – Also see our new Lightroom 4 Giveaway!]

With the official release of Lightroom 3.0 looking to be just around the corner here!, it’s time to launch our June contest… This month we’re giving away 3 free upgrades to Lightroom 3, and all you have to do for a shot to win is enter your email address in the “Adobe Special Offers” box in the sidebar to the right for our free occasional e-newsletter. That’s it.

It’s open worldwide with one subscription per person and submissions end at 11:59pm EDT on Wednesday, June 30th, 2010. Then on July 1st we’ll choose three new subscribers at random, and if you’re one of them we’ll ship you a shiny new shrinkwrapped upgrade to Lightroom 3 for free! (Or if you’ve already purchased your upgrade by that time, just send us the bill and we’ll reimburse 100% of your cost via PayPal.) We’ll contact you via email just to get your address for shipping, and then follow up back here announcing your first name and hometown. It’s that simple, no kidding!

If you like, you can find out more about our newsletter – it typically covers select Adobe-related news plus the latest specials and promo codes. And of course you can easily unsubscribe from the bottom of any issue. Natu­rally we’ll never spam you or share your email address with anyone else, ever. So enter your email today and spread the word – someone has to win and there’s nothing to lose…

See Terry White’s popular new video, My Top 5 Favorite Lightroom 3 Features.
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[UPDATE – See the prizewinners, plus our new Lightroom 4 Giveaway!]

Our last giveaway went so well that we’re launching a new one for the month of May – we’re giving away ten copies of some of the best CS5 books coming, Adobe’s popular “Classroom in a Book” series! The books will be published in early June, just after the contest ends… They sell for up to $59.99 and include companion DVDs for Windows or Mac with bonus content including lesson files and video tutorials. Our winners can choose a book for whichever product you’d like: Photoshop CS5, Dreamweaver CS5, Illustrator CS5, InDesign CS5, Flash Pro CS5, Flash Catalyst CS5, Premiere Pro CS5, After Effects CS5, Fireworks CS5, or CS5 Design Premium.

To enter, all you have to do is add a comment below describing what you like about CS5 and how you’ll be using it, in up to four sentences – that’s it! The contest runs until 11:59pm EDT on Monday, May 31st, 2010, when we’ll choose the ten entries we like the best. One entry per person please, and if two submissions are similar, the first one will count. The contest is open to residents of the USA, Canada, U.K. and Ireland, and the winners will be chosen and books shipped out next month. Be sure to give an accurate email address as we’ll be contacting ten commenters via email to get shipping information, and then follow up back here announcing first names and home­towns.

Speaking of giveaways, we’re also pleased to announce the winner of our big Photoshop CS5 Giveaway last month… The lucky fellow who won the drawing is Dayne from North Lincoln­shire, England, and he will be receiving a shiny new shrinkwrap­ped box of Photoshop CS5 for free!

It turns out Dayne is a talented young artist who after­wards sent us some work he did with Photoshop CS4, which we’d like to share with you here…
Congratulations Dayne, and we’ll look forward to seeing what you do with CS5. And thanks again to everyone who entered for your participation and enthusiasm.

Adobe has some more great product releases coming up, so we expect to be running one new contest each month for a while to come… And since we have a full ten new Creative Suite 5 books to give away this month, if you enter now plus facebook and tweet your friends and colleagues, hopefully one of you will get one!