Just back from Adobe MAX 2013 and as in previous experiences, it’s always the three most intense days of the year… It’s wall-to-wall with larger-than-life presentations, keynotes with creative luminaries, diverse educational sessions, connecting with other leaders in the Adobe space, hands-on with the latest design tools, meeting the product teams, feeling the energy of the show floor, the buzz over “Sneak Peek” demos of cool new technology, and of course the fantastical MAX Bash party with 5,000 of your closest friends.

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Summer is coming and school will be out soon… But if you want to take the break as an oppor­tunity to learn new skills, did you know that Adobe offers free full-year curriculums on print, web, and video design? The three extensive, project-based courses are downloadable to anyone for building career and communica­tion expertise using industry-leading tools, although naturally you can go at your own speed. The programs include presentations, technical guides, project guidelines, reproducible student materials and select media assets, and each project builds on lessons learned previously. Time-saving new features in CS6 are high­lighted within the 2,400+ pages of total content.

Adobe collaborated with a community of educators across the US and UK to develop the appropriate depth and breadth of each project. Additionally, Adobe co-developed the classes with the International Society of Technology Education (ISTE) to create standards-aligned, career-track, course materials that focus on the major fields below. They are recommended for use when preparing for Adobe certification (Adobe Certified Associate, or ACA).

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The Creative Cloud and Creative Suite 6 are the most powerful and versatile toolsets Adobe has ever produced and so we’re seeing a lot of demand for training resources to learn how to best use these products…

In January we posted details on over 30 hours of free video tutorials for CS6, and last month published details on a fantastic new ebook for getting started learning the Adobe Design Suite (194 pages).  But if you’re looking for a nice primer or beginner’s lessons for Adobe Dreamweaver, that’s harder to find.

Fortunately there’s a a new book you can download that will teach you the essentials of Adobe Dreamweaver for free, thanks to the generosity of author Professor Thomas Payne… He writes:

“These tutorials are designed to get you through the basics of making web sites in Dreamweaver with the most flexibility and the least amount of work. Think of them as supplying you with a toolbox full of tools to start making good websites.

They are deceptively packed with informa­tion, and they are designed to also act as reference after you are finished completing them. Web pages across the Internet have a lot of similarities, and the information here is designed to cover many of these similarities.”

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The Creative Cloud and Creative Suite 6 are the most powerful and versatile toolsets Adobe has ever produced and so we’re seeing a lot of demand for training resources to learn how to best use these products…

In January we posted details on over 30 hours of free video tutorials for CS6.  But if you’re just getting started with Adobe’s core design tools, what’s better than a step-by-step book that will teach you the essentials of Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign from the ground up?

Fortunately there’s a terrific new book you can download that will teach you all of this for free, courtesy of author Professor Thomas Payne… The way the book does this is by intro­ducing and explaining the tools in a logical way that builds upon what is previously learned. These applica­tions present a vast array of buttons and gadgets that can be overwhelming to the new user. This book makes sense of it all, not showing how everything works, but instead giving a foundation and a path to learn about all those controls and what they can do for you.

The 12 chapters in this book (listed below) look a bit like tutorials. As with tutorials, you work in the programs as you follow along with the reading. Unlike tutorials, the steps here present the informa­tion in a way that is geared to having you actually learn the material, not just a list of steps to get something that looks decent.

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Creative Suite 6 and the Creative Cloud are the most powerful and sophisticated toolsets Adobe has ever released and so there is a lot of demand for training resources to learn how to best use these products…

Last month we posted details on over 30 hours of free video tutorials for CS6.  But printed materials are also nice, to use side-by-side at your own pace. So how about a collection of free e-books to go along with those, which you can instantly download and learn from whenever you want?

There are 10 volumes of 169 chapters in total with over 1,000 pages for most CS6 products. Some tools receive more coverage than others, but the basics are reviewed for all. You can download in the ebooks in PDF format after signing in with your Adobe ID (which is easy to create if you don’t already have one).

If you don’t have the software yet, just download a free working trial for any CS6 product for Windows or Mac (or try the whole Creative Cloud) – then install, run, and start your training…

Here’s how the files break out. Click on the title to download the e-book, or the trial to get the free product tryout. The book file sizes range from 4-10 MB each, so shouldn’t take long to download.  The contents of each volume are listed below the table:

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Adobe Evangelist Terry White has a great new training session out showing you how to get started achieving immediate and productive results using new Illustrator CS6… This 42-minute class covers all the basics and walks through how to accomplish the top 10 techniques that beginners always want to know how to do. Earlier Terry did similar introductory primers for Photoshop, Lightroom, and InDesign – and now it’s Illustrator’s turn.

Here’s the overview:

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We’ve mentioned Adobe TV in the past, but it just keeps getting bigger and better…  When Creative Suite 6 was released, they published a 15-hour series of new online tutorials – but have recently doubled this to over 30 hours now of free video training for all CS6 tools.

You’ll learn the basics with Getting Started overviews plus What’s New reviews by product experts, with 274 total chapters covering all major CS6 applications.

If you don’t already have the programs installed on your computer but would like to get going today, you can easily down­load the free working trials for any CS6 product for Windows or Mac – then install, run, and start your training…

Acrobat is not listed below, but if you want to learn how to use that software then see these separate three hours for Acrobat X or two hours for Acrobat XI.

We’ve also linked below nearly two hours of sessions for the Creative Cloud, if decide to sign up for free membership there, or are already a member.

[ Trying to decide which is right for you?  See: Creative Cloud vs. CS6 Comparison ]

Lastly, if you also like learning in print, then don’t miss this nice set of free new CS6 e-books (over 1,000 pages).  But here’s how the video courses break out:

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We’ve previously featured 30 hours of free video tutorials for Adobe’s Creative Suite 6, as well as four hours for Lightroom 4 – so here are some terrific (and free) learning resources for the recently released Elements 11 product line…

In the course given below, the experts share how to get started with Premiere Elements 11 for editing your videos, the essentials of the software, new features added in PRE 11, how to use important tools and functions, plus their best tips and techniques. In total, there is over 2 hours of free video training, spanning 21 separate chapters.

Most modern cameras now take both great photos and videos, so Premiere Elements is well-integrated with Photoshop Elements for your image editing – and since many people use the two tools together, you may also be interested in three hours of free tutorials for learning how to use Photoshop Elements 11.

Because Elements 11 has an all-new intuitive editing environment with a revamped Organizer plus other new features, the content here doesn’t carry well to older versions of Premiere Elements.  However, we do also have a page still available with several hours of free tutorials for PRE 10 & 9 and earlier.

If you need a copy of Premiere or Photoshop Elements 11 to get going right away, just download the free trials and they will work fully on your computer for one month, which should be plenty of time to get through the classes. Note at the bottom of this page, you’ll also find quick demonstrations of the two programs.

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Adobe Evangelist Terry White has a terrific new training session out showing you how to get started achieving immediate and impactful results using new Lightroom 4… This 37-minute class covers all the basics and walks through how to accomplish the top 10 things that beginners always want to know how to do.

Here’s the overview:

In this episode we’re going to take a look at how to get started with Lightroom 4 – the ten things beginners want to know how to do.  It’s kind of keeping up with a primer series I’ve been doing: I started with Photoshop and then I did InDesign, and now it’s time to do Lightroom.  So let’s jump right in and talk about the 10 things beginners want to know how to do right off the bat.

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Time-lapse photography videos are all the rage these days…  Here is one of our recent favorites from Norwegian landscape photographer Terje Sorgjerd – incredibly beautiful and perfect for the season (watch full-screen):

Prior to the extensive video editing tools added in CS6, Photoshop wasn’t normally known for its video capabilities – but in fact it’s always been quite easy to take a series of still photo­graphs (edited as desired) and then quickly create your own timelapse video using Photoshop Extended… This will work in the Photoshop CS3, CS4, CS5, or CS6 releases – and Extended is not required if you have CS6, as the standard version can do video as well.

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