The last time we saw the “#1 Photoshop Fan,” he was camped out all night waiting for the release of Photoshop CS5… Now he’s back (in the funny video below) and helping launch a new contest to find Adobe’s “Next Photoshop Evangelist” – and if it’s you, you’ll win a new copy of Creative Suite 5 plus a paid trip to Photoshop World in Florida next March, including the chance to demo your work at the conference, roundtrip coach airfare, lodging, and meals.

To enter: “Upload a two-minute Photoshop video tutorial demonstrating why you should be the Next Photoshop Evangelist. Your video must use Photoshop CS5, a new Photoshop CS5 feature, and, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Photoshop, incorporate the concept of ‘20′ some­where in the final image. Have fun!”

If you need Photoshop CS5 to use for the contest, you can easily download the fully-working free trial for 30 days. For choosing a new feature to use, see the list of new CS5 features for Photoshop (and all other products).

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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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We’re seeing some folks reporting problems trying to download the new Lightroom 3 using the Akamai Download Manager, which is enabled by default at Adobe.com… There are several posts on the user forums (e.g., here and here), as well as incoming visitor search queries here like “download link for lightroom 3 without akamai,” “adobe lightroom 3 direct download link,” and “how to download lightroom 3 from adobe without the download manager.”

So to complement our earlier sets of direct links for Adobe CS5 and CS4, below are the direct download links for Lightroom 3 – they are very straightforward, just one single file for each platform that covers all languages (with both 32-bit and 64-bit versions inside for Windows)…

Because we’ve also had requests for links for the Elements product line (Photoshop Elements 8 and Premiere Elements 8), you’ll find those further down as well – including the extra con­tent files for Premiere Elements. All of these links go to the auth­entic files residing on Adobe’s servers, are guaranteed genuine and will not change.

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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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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 new video, My Top 5 Favorite Lightroom 3 Features.
Read more…

[UPDATE (6/11) – Get Lightroom 3 or Elements 8 direct too.]

Following our popular post last week with the direct download links to the official trials of CS4 and CS3 for those who need them, by reader request we are doing the same for all CS5 products here… In theory the Akamai Download Manager that Adobe uses is a good thing, intending to reduce download times and provide a ‘resume’ capability in case of interruption. But despite their best efforts, some folks are still encountering problems downloading CS5 with Akamai’s presence, so we thought we’d provide a complete set of direct download links for all Adobe Creative Suite 5 software (Windows and Mac), for instant easy access and to assist in these cases…

Below is a table for CS5 trial downloads in major languages. These links go to the auth­entic CS5 files residing on Adobe’s servers, are guaranteed genuine and will not change. For Windows, each program consists of up to two files, an .exe and a 7-Zip file (.7z). The .exe file will only work once the .7z file is fully downloaded and resides in the same location. For the Mac, it’s just a single .dmg file for each program.

The supported languages vary by product. The Western Euro­pean languages can include Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish. To see which product supports which languages, visit the main Adobe trials page and then click on the selection menu for whichever product(s) you’d like to try – it will tell you which languages are currently available.

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[UPDATE (June 4th) – If you'd also like to download CS5 directly see our complete set of links.
If you want to buy After Effects CS4 or Premiere Pro CS4, see our recommendation here.]

Even though Creative Suite 5 is out and is a phenomenal release, some folks still need the earlier versions for various reasons: 32-bit vs 64-bit (e.g., After Effects and Premiere Pro), compatibility with other software or systems owned, the rest of your class or company is still on CS4, you need to reinstall but no longer have your original disks or download file, etc… But this older software is now hard to find – Adobe doesn’t publicize or provide a web interface for it. So if you’ve been searching high and low all over the Internet to find the official Adobe trial downloads for CS4 or CS3, well your search is over!

Below are two tables for CS4 trial downloads in major languages. These links go to the auth­entic CS4 files residing on Adobe’s servers, are guaranteed genuine and will not change. For Windows, each program consists of two files, an .exe and a 7-Zip file (.7z). The .exe file will only work once the .7z package is fully downloaded and resides in the same location. For the Mac, it’s just a single .dmg file for each program.

There are also optional “extra content” downloads included here for most products that consist of one or two additional files, which you can install separately after the main product is installed.

Read more…

[UPDATE (June 7th) – See the winners plus our new contest!]

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!

We’ve covered AdobeTV before, but it just keeps getting bigger and better… They’ve just issued a large series of free new video tutorials for every CS5 point product. You can learn the basics with Getting Started overviews and New Features re­views by product experts, fourteen hours in all. And if you want to get started today, you can go ahead and down­load a 30-day free trial for any CS5 product and begin getting trained…

Here’s how it breaks out:

The extensive how-to series was produced by Lynda.com in partnership with Adobe.

Click to immediately download whichever you like, from Photoshop CS5 to Master Collection!
All CS5 trials are fully functional for thirty days and can run side-by-side on your system with older versions, without interference. The Windows or Mac downloads can be installed on multiple computers if desired – and if and when you are ready to buy, you can easily convert your trial to permanent unrestricted use without reinstalling the software in most cases:

Note there is a single trial download for Photoshop – it’s Photoshop CS5 Extended, which includes the Standard version. You decide which you wish to activate at the time of purchase.* The same thing goes for CS5 Design Premium and Design Standard – you get the bigger one and choose later. Also, the trials for the suites do not bundle Acrobat 9 Pro – so it must be downloaded separately.

If you’re upgrading to CS5, you can install a trial and then buy an upgrade to convert your trial into a purchased version. What’s more, a single CS5 purchase may entitle you to install and activate the software on two systems with certain restrictions. No serial number is needed to download or run the trials. For more information on these and other questions, refer to the full CS5 Trial FAQ.

See also: The complete CS5 Product Matrix, CS5 Price Sheet & CS5 System Requirements.

* Note that for Adobe’s Education (Student and Teacher) Editions, there is only one version of Photoshop offered or available – the top-of-the-line Photoshop CS5 Extended. The good news is you’re getting 80% off the regular price!

[UPDATE (May 25th) – If you prefer you can use the direct download links for CS5. If you need the free trials for earlier Adobe releases like CS4 and CS3, they're available for download here.]