Content Aware Fill is one of the major features added in Adobe Photoshop CS5, and is said to be one of its greatest new timesavers. CAF allows you to move or delete parts of your image and Photoshop will automatically and intelligently fill in the space left behind. We’ve written about it before with the quote, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguish­able from magic.” [Arthur C. Clarke]

And in our shop here we save hours every month from using Content Aware Fill as well as other CS5 advancements like Puppet Warp and the improved edge/masking tools.

Yet we still see some people claiming that Content Aware Fill “doesn’t work,” “doesn’t give results like in the demo video,” “doesn’t use the right back­ground,” or is just hype, smoke-and-mirrors, or a “gimmick.”

It’s true that it doesn’t always work and of course has its limitations. You can’t synthesize brand new material or hidden content that doesn’t exist in some related form elsewhere in the image. And often it will require some retouching afterwards to get the final result you want.

But usually it will get you most of the way there very quickly – if you know the most effective ways to use the feature. The best is when it “just works” without doing anything special, and this happens often enough too…

Here is a quick before-and-after example that required doing nothing more than an item selection and a content-aware delete… and one could say that for (literally) a two-minute job, it borders on magic…  Just roll over with your mouse (or tap) for the before and after results:

So what are the tips for ensuring Photoshop’s Content Aware Fill works the way you want? Here are two video walkthroughs to help learn how to make it do your heavy lifting.

The first features Russell Brown showing several before and after examples – with the key technique being to make a tight selection of what you want to fill or remove, and then expanding your selection by 5-10 pixels all around… (use the Select menu > Modify > Expand… Expand Selection by X Pixels) Setting things up that way gives the CAF algorithm just the right amount information on what it should remove and what it should use to fill in the space, without getting things you don’t want or mixing in too much.

The second tutorial is from Terry White and shows how to use Layer Masks to exclude the part(s) of the image you don’t want Content Aware Fill to draw data from at all. Alternatively, you can do the inverse and use the same method to include only the areas you do want the tool to use when composing the filled space. And as the video title indicates – “What to Do When Content Aware Fill or Content Aware Scale Doesn’t Work” – he gives tips for using Photoshop’s Content Aware Scaling feature as well.

And of course if you then combine both of these techniques your results will be better still… Sometimes it takes a little experimentation, and if the area to be filled is complex (or large), then do it in sections.

Here they are… and hopefully with the skills from these two videos in hand, you’ll get more satisfying – fast and timesaving – results from the latest version of Photoshop.

[Extra:  Watch Part 1 of Russell Brown's show.]

Download a free trial of Photoshop CS5 and try it out yourself!

Check out more of the best tutorials for Photoshop (any learning level or product version).

Watch other video demonstrations of more Content-Aware Fill tricks & techniques.

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If you’d like to learn how to use Adobe’s Creative Suite tools to easily and portably create websites and apps for tablets, smartphones, and mobile devices there’s a new 2¼-hour course you’ll be interested in…

Guru Paul Trani teaches an extensive free class with 18 video chapters that will take you step-by-step on how to create portable content that will run on both Apple iOS and Google Android devices with a wide variety of screen sizes using a single code base. Basic usage of HTML5 and CSS3 is covered, as well as how to bring in Adobe’s recent additions PhoneGap (for building fast, cross-platform mobile applica­tions) and Typekit (for delivering custom web fonts).

The first half of the video series employs Adobe Dreamweaver CS5.5 to develop both websites and apps, with steps on how to convert a website into a portable mobile app. The tutorials then move on to using Flash-based tools (with Adobe AIR) to build multi-platform mobile apps. We already know that Flash Professional CS5 can be used to build apps for the iPad and iPhone, but this takes it a step further. The videos guide you all the way through to how to publish your app to your device and to the Android Market (which shows immediately) or to the Apple App Store.

If you don’t own the Adobe software yet but would like to use it to follow along with the training, you can easily download the free trials, which will be fully-functional for 30 days. The tutorials also include downloadable sample files to use as you go along, so be sure to look for those.

The CS5.5 Web Premium suite is used in the demonstrations – which coincidentally we’re also giving away for free!

Here’s the 2¼-hour course:

And here is the first segment (the Overview chapter) to get you started:

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The long-awaited Adobe Lightroom 4 beta release finally made its appearance last week (free download here), and has some folks pretty excited about the collection of new features. There’s a complete list further below, but some of the biggies include much better video support, soft proofing, integrated maps and photo books, and some amazing improvements to the Develop module.

We’ve got a new video here from the popular Terry White giving a fine walkthrough of what’s new and improved…  Adobe has said they expect the general featureset to remain consistent between the beta and the final release (see when that will be).

This “public beta,” so that means it’s not done yet – it’s a beta product, it’s not been released… so therefore you should proceed accordingly. This is not “ready for prime time” nor ready for for production work. However, as a public beta you can freely download it, install it side-by-side with any earlier versions of LR you may have, begin testing it, try out the new features, and check out what’s in store – and more importantly give Adobe feedback on what you’d like to see in this version or in future versions.

How does Lightroom 4 compare vs. Lightroom 3?

First off, we should mention something a little controversial regarding older computers: Adobe is dropping support for the ten-year-old Microsoft Windows XP with this release… The official LR4 system requirements call for Windows Vista or 7, or a 64-bit capable Mac OS. And if you’re wondering why they did this, Adobe has just put up a new post explaining why.

For the rest of what’s changed, we had planned to put together an detailed, comprehensive overview with the details and screenshots for every new feature and function – but then we found Ian Lyon’s excellent and comprehensive review which already did exactly that…

So here’s the punch list of top-level new features in LR4:

And for more details and the best coverage we’ve found, check out [via] Ian Lyon’s page.

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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):

Photoshop isn’t normally known for its video capabilities, but it’s actually quite easy to take a series of still photographs (edited as desired) and then create your own timelapse video using Photoshop Extended… This will work in the CS5, CS4, or CS3 versions.

Photoshop guru Russell Brown gives the details below on how to make and export your own creation:

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Adobe Photoshop is a sophisticated tool with a 21-year history and a seemingly-endless array of powerful capabilities.  And after spending $549 for the product with discounts (or $199 for students), who wants to pay a lot more to learn how to use it all?

Fortunately there are a number of avenues to get great training and tutorials for free. The first stop is Adobe TV, which has nearly four hours and 37 chapters of 100% free tutorials for Photoshop CS5 alone. There is also a wealth of content for prior versions like Photoshop CS3 and CS4. It’s a good place to get started and orient yourself with the major functions, and all of it is gratis.

For learning how to use the best new features added in Photoshop CS5, take a look at our collection of articles with tours of:

• Content-Aware Fill
• Puppet Warp
• Top Masking Techniques
• Creating Time-Lapse Videos
• Impressionist Oil Painting

We also have a regular page here on the site with a rotating selection of tuts for all versions of Photoshop, stepping through various tips and tricks. And for a terrific set of little-known but very handy techniques, check out Adobe’s Photoshop “Hidden Gems” series with Product Manager Bryan O’Neil Hughes.

Lynda.com is the leading independent website providing online video training for Adobe products, with nearly 800(!) hours of coursework for Photoshop – covering all versions dating back to Photoshop 6 in 2002. Courses are extensive, often running several days – and there are always some chapters that are free for anybody to view, with full access starting at $25/month. But we have partnered with them for our readers to receive a free 7-day trial with unlimited access to the entire site, and get one week of all 1,036 courses in their Online Training Library for free.

If you’d like a free top-flight course to really get you going in Photoshop from the ground up, check out the three online skills clinics below from the experts at National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP)…  These exclusive web-based training sessions with the “Photoshop Guys” are a great opportunity to quickly get up to speed on the timesaving features and breakthrough tools in the latest version.

If you don’t already have Photoshop, just download the free trial so you can work side-by-side in these three classes, which were originally given live to customers but are now available free to all users via on-demand replay:

• Class 1: Photoshop CS5 – Up & Running in No Time
• Class 2: Cool Photoshop Skills – Effects and Retouching Anyone Can Do with Photoshop CS5
• Class 3: Photoshop CS5 Street Smarts – Shortcuts, Killer Tips, and Next-Level Skills

These excellent Photoshop tutorial videos run four hours in total and can be viewed here: Exclusive Adobe Photoshop Clinic Webcasts.

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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 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, including a photograph with challenging hair.

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.

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

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We’ve previously covered 17+ hours of free video tutorials for Creative Suite 5, plus three hours for Lightroom 3 – so here are some brand new training resources for the just-released Adobe Photoshop Elements 10… Most of these tutorials also apply to Photoshop Elements 9, which shares the same interface but just doesn’t have as many features.

In these three courses the experts share how to get started, the basics of the software, new features, how to use key tools and functions, plus their favorite tips and techniques. In sum, there is over four hours of free content, with 46 separate chapters.

If you need a copy of Photoshop Elements 10 to get going right away, just download the free trial and it will work fully for 30 calendar days, which should be plenty of time to get through the classes.

If you prefer learning in written form, we’ve got the Adobe Photoshop Elements Guide – a free 95-page e-book you can download as well.

This extensive series is presented by teaching gurus Tim Grey and Chad Chelius, and was produced by video2brain.

For affordable live, interactive training on Photoshop Elements, we recommend the excellent online workshops given at Everyday Elements.

See what’s new and improved in PSE 10 – or see what the industry reviews are saying.

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Last week Adobe revealed 11 sneak peek videos of technology they are working on but haven’t released yet, and while Photoshop Image Deblurring and InDesign Liquid Layout got much of the attention, there were still some amazing developments in the video realm as well – and all three of those are covered below.

Naturally, Adobe says there are never any guarantees for what may or may not appear in a production release, or when… (maybe CS6?) But nevertheless, major new product features very often appear in these previews before they make the real tools (case in point, Content-Aware Fill).

3D Video Meshes

The first sneak was about turning ordinary 2D video into 3D – in fact, dynamically editable 3D video! A very cool demo by Sylvain Paris, allowing direct manipulation of the objects and characters within the moving scene, and the ability to change camera parameters post-facto like focus and depth of field. Adobe says, “a potential feature for editing videos” – a future advancement falling somewhere in between Premiere Pro and After Effects.

Auto-Align New Dialogue Track

The next demo was at the intersection of video editing with audio processing. Commonly the original audio track for a video piece is thrown out and replaced by a new one recorded in the studio. This often introduces vocal alignment issues and challenges in getting everything synchronized naturally. A new Premiere Pro function called “RubbaDub” is shown here by Brian King which will automatically replace the dialog of a video clip with separately recorded audio to near perfection – even if the two halves are coming from different people.

Auto-Sync of Crowd-Sourced Video

This last one continues in the same line of making the video editor’s job simpler by automati­cally resolving complex tasks. In this presentation, Nicholas Bryan shows you a sneak peek of a possible new Premiere Pro feature that synchronizes multiple video clips taken with different cameras and different vantage points into a single merged, immersive video.

See more from the show – including the keynote presentations plus over 160 hours of free tutorials and training sessions from the experts, on a wide range of topics covering all major Adobe products.

And check the other big previews, like the aforementioned, much-discussed Photo Deblurring and Liquid Layout sneaks.

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Here is the latest news on Photoshop Image Deblurring:  In response to some of your questions here at ProDesignTools, we contacted Adobe and requested they help “bring into focus” the new Deblur feature that could be in a future Photoshop. We got in touch with Dr. Jue Wang, Adobe senior research scientist, and as a direct result his team has provided more examples of the technology using notable photographs. Most of these are well-known from history or come from independent sources, and thus began with natural camera blur.

For those just joining us on the story, here’s a quick review: Earlier this month we ran a feature article on this “sneak peek” of an amazing new capability revealed at Adobe MAX. Several blurry photographs were processed through a new Photoshop plug-in to give before-and-after results that wowed the crowd, even more than the other popular sneak demos at the show. [See the full video in HD]

Why did controversy later arise? For the last brief image of his demonstration, intending to be entertaining and relevant to the audience, Dr. Wang used a photo of Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch that had been synthetically blurred. Creation of synthetic inputs is common practice across the research in this field, but out of simplicity, Dr. Wang did not go into those origins at the time.

The original sharp version was found online, and even though the other images came from real-world blur due to camera shake, this opened the door for some to raise questions about the efficacy of the developing technology. After we contacted them, Adobe added an update to their Photoshop.com blog post explaining why synthetic blurring was used for that example, but some skepticism remained.

So we got in touch with Dr. Wang again and have been working with him over the weekend. In response, his team put together a group of independent photographs that began with natural camera blur and included the results from Photoshop’s Image Deblurring algorithm. Here is what he wrote to us yesterday:

This is still early-stage research and as it develops we will definitely be reaching out to the community for testing examples. But at the moment our researchers are still refining the technologies. In the meantime, we have put some real-world examples on our fun Deblur Famous Photos webpage, and there will be more. On the page you can also find a way to contribute to our research.

We hope you find these as helpful and interesting as we do. Just roll over each photo with your mouse (or tap) for the before and after results. And if you have an image of your own or a good-case historical photo, please see the invitation on how to propose it for deblurring at the end of this article.

Robert Capa’s D-Day Photo

This is perhaps the most famous blurry photograph in American history. It was taken by Robert Capa on June 6, 1944, during World War II. The picture captured an American soldier landing on Omaha Beach on D-Day in Normandy, France. As you can see, the technical quality of the original is challenging – there is an enormous degree of blur, noise, and artifacts. It’s an extreme test of the Photoshop deblurring algorithm, but check out the noteworthy result – particularly in the foreground, and the new detail revealed in the G.I.’s face.

Microsoft’s Sculpture Test

Here is an authentic photograph Microsoft used as a test for their own picture deblurring solution, which involved having hardware gyro sensors built into a special camera and then using the sensor data recorded at the time of image capture to automatically deblur each photo taken on it. As a challenge, the Adobe team fed the same original Microsoft image blurred from camera shake into the Photoshop prototype, which of course did not have the benefit of the recorded data to work backwards from. Yet the Photoshop output compares favorably with Microsoft’s result that had required the special apparatus.

Korean Pagoda

One last example we’ll cover is from the Hwanho Sunrise Park in Pohang, Korea. This photo­graph was an inspiration to the Korean team that originally created the Photoshop unblur technology, in that the image convolution was so bad that it seemed impossible to save. But the researchers didn’t give up working on their algorithms – and then finally late one night, it worked. Notice in particular the water, the trees, and the bench at the lower right.

More

Of course, the developing algorithm does not always work so well (which the researchers freely admit) – and you can see an example of that, plus more details and estimated blur kernels for all images at the Deblur Famous/Interesting Photos page, where visitor submissions of additional photos are also invited.

Read more about this sneak peek, or watch the original Photoshop Deblur demo in its entirety, now in full-screen High Definition video…  Also catch the cool sneaks for other Adobe products:

• InDesign Liquid Layout
• Three for Premiere Pro & After Effects
• All 11 sneak peeks presented at the show

See the best from Adobe MAX 2011 – including the keynote presentations plus over 160 hours of free tutorials and training sessions from the experts, on a wide range of topics covering all major Adobe applications.

Check out more Adobe Photoshop (CS5) magic with advanced demos and techniques for the new Content-Aware Fill feature as well as Puppet Warp.

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This very cool InDesign “sneak” comes fresh from the big Adobe MAX conference earlier this month…  What’s a sneak?

We’ve gone through the company and found the 11 coolest demos of technology that are at work within Adobe. These are things that are on the cutting edge of the technology. They may show up in a product, they may not. The demo may work, it may not. But this is your chance to get closer and really understand where we’re going and what we’re doing.

OK fair enough.  Here’s the set up:

“I want to show you some things we’re thinking about on the InDesign Team. As you know, it’s actually been about a year since we launched Digital Publishing Suite, and we’ve had fantastic traction in terms of getting great-looking content on tablet devices. So I have an iPad here and as you see I can turn it over and tilt it, let the accelerometer do its trick. We’re actually seeing two different layouts here – two different layouts – which creates two different files. So designers actually have to create two separate InDesign files for this one device.

Another thing that’s happening is you’ve got another device like the Motorola Xoom – and on the Xoom you’ve got an totally different size, shape, aspect ratio. And the best we can do right now is if you notice the black bands here – this is all white space – you have to scale down the layout to fit on this size screen. It drives designers crazy – God abhors white space – and this just drives us insane. But it’s the best that we can do right now.

So, how are we going to make things a bit easier for the designer?”

The InDesign Sneak

For the rest, words can’t accurately capture what happens in the demo, so the video is the only way:

Thanks to Adobe presenter Kiyomassa Toma.  Notice the new Adobe Edge even makes a guest appearance of sorts, with the embedding of the HTML5 animation in the document displayed across multiple platforms.

So, could this whizzy new capability be coming in InDesign CS6?  Well, Creative Suite 6 could be about six months away or so – and the smooth and polished nature of the demonstration suggests to us that (hopefully) this kind of thing could be ready to go by then. That contrasts with the “prototype” feel to the (nonetheless impressive) Photoshop Image Deblurring sneak that was shown by Adobe at the same session.

Certainly, this type of liquid layout feature – to be able to automatically adapt layouts across devices and screen orientations – is hugely needed as the number of smartphone and tablet models continues to skyrocket, all with different profiles. It also becomes an even bigger deal with the announcement of the new Digital Publishing Suite Single Edition at MAX, for smaller publishers.

See more from the show – including the keynote presentations plus over 160 hours of free tutorials and training sessions from the experts, on a wide range of topics covering all major Adobe products.  And we’ll have more MAX sneaks here for other Adobe products in the coming weeks… For instance, the aforementioned, much-buzzed-about Photoshop sneak.

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Can you imagine a new feature in Photoshop that could automatically deblur photographs to restore the originally-intended subject material to clarity and focus?  Adobe can…

This demonstration comes from last week’s Adobe MAX conference in Los Angeles, where the last major session showcases “sneaks” of what Adobe is working on but hasn’t revealed yet. There are no guarantees for what may or may not appear in a production release, or when. But, could this appear in a future version like Photoshop CS6?  Well, watch this video and make up your own mind:

Adobe Photo Deblur: How Does It Work?

From the video you see the key element in the unblurring feature is the program’s intensive computation of a “blur kernel” (or point spread function), a unique signature which describes the motion trajectory of the camera while the shutter was open during the creation of the flawed image… Then, once this path is determined, further computation applies it to the blurry picture to reverse and work back to what the photograph should have looked like originally – in other words, to remove the blur and restore a sharp image.

For the clearest example, check this high-resolution before-and-after still photo comparison. Or see brand new amazing photos of this capability that have been released since the show.

Watching it in action is pretty amazing – unreal even – as heard in the gasps and incredulity of the audience, which at this venue is a pretty sophisticated crowd. The show’s emcee calls it, “mind-blowing, cool Photoshop magic.”  And though this plug-in can’t correct a picture that’s just plain out of focus, with the rise of cellphone cameras everywhere and the iPhone now being the #1 camera on Flickr, the ability to fix camera shake and repair blurry or smeared images could be a very big deal.

So, back to the previous question – could this new feature be coming in Photoshop CS6?  Well, Creative Suite 6 (or whatever CS “Next” is called) could be about six months away or so – and picking up some of the cues from Adobe presenter Jue Wang, it’s unclear…  He says in various spots, “we have been working on this problem for a while and have built a prototype to solve it,” and, “you can see there are a lot of controls here because it’s still an early prototype,” so it’s hard to say how close something like this might actually be.

What do you think?

Let us know in the comments below.

See the best from Adobe MAX 2011 – including the keynote presentations plus over 160 hours of free tutorials and training sessions from the experts, on a wide range of topics covering all major Adobe products.  And we’ll have more MAX sneaks here for other Adobe products in the coming weeks… For instance, here are new sneaks for InDesign Liquid Layout and Premiere Pro Syncing.

Check out more Adobe Photoshop (CS5) magic with advanced demos and techniques for the new Content-Aware Fill feature as well as Puppet Warp.

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Similar to how they did before the launch of CS5, Adobe has been quietly slipping out a bevy of “sneaks” (now numbering 16 videos) for new features that may be in a forthcoming release of the Creative Suite…

“Check out what new technologies, features and innovations the Adobe product teams are working on behind the scenes. Stay tuned to get an early glimpse of what could be next from Adobe.”

The products covered include: InDesign, Dreamweaver, After Effects, Premiere Pro, Audition, Adobe Story, Media Encoder, Flex, Flash Pro, Flash Builder and Flash Catalyst.

Given the recent news of a “mid-cycle release to CS5″ (e.g., CS5.5), and a forecast for when CS6 could be out, one question might be in which future version might we see these new capabilities?

Well, Adobe tips their hand once again – because at the end of a couple of these videos they flash the graphic, “CS5 is Evolving: April 11th, 2011″……
Which says to us, you might expect some of these features soon, in fact you might expect more about them next week!

The company has scheduled a special session with Creative Suite Evangelists on Monday, and is tweeting: “CS5 is getting even better. Stay tuned to #Adobe.com on 4/11, and join this Q&A“

Join us on Facebook for a live Q&A with Creative Suite Evangelists Terry White (Design), Greg Rewis (Web), Paul Trani (Flash Platform) and Jason Levine (Digital Video & Audio) from 9am – 10am PDT on Monday, April 11. They will be answering all your Creative Suite questions, so start thinking about what you’ve been dying to ask.

So here are some of the significant new preview demos… For the complete set, please see the Adobe Technology Sneaks 2011 page.

[UPDATE (April 11th) – Right on schedule, Adobe CS5.5 is out!]

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If you’re interested in learning about the best web and interaction design techniques, there’s a free new 2½-hour course you’ll find worthwhile…

It’s the third installment in the excellent Classroom series, which features free expert training in well-designed sessions with high-quality production values. Previous classes have been an in-depth Dreamweaver CS5 tutorial and a terrific After Effects CS5 tutorial.

This latest presentation details how to design your interfaces in the most effective way with the behavior of the user in mind. Some of the topics include crafting effective navigational systems, creating a liquid layout, how to best deliver images and media, designing forms and dialogs to smoothly guide users through a positive user experience, and more. The best practices covered here will help you make better design decisions in your work going forward.

The video uses Adobe Flash Catalyst CS5 as a tool to help walk through the important concepts involved. It’s not necessary to own or have Flash Catalyst to get a lot out of the training, although if you would like a free trial to use or follow along with, you can easily download it for free. Each chapter also includes downloadable sample files to use as you go through the demonstrations, so be sure to look for those.

Here it is:

We’ll touch upon the five essential principles covered in the course here:

Consistency
Strive for consistency in appearance and behavior, because it facilitates usability, credibility, and trust.

Visibility
Most interfaces are inherently visual, so make certain that people know when and where they can interact with it.

Learnability
Meaningful and unambiguous labels, content, and interactions make it possible to quickly understand and repeat an experience.

Predictability
Set expectations about what will happen during and after an interaction to minimize confusion and dissatisfaction.

Feedback
Acknowledge interactions and provide information about status, location, progress, and completion.

Interaction design is ultimately not about the behavior of the interface, it is about the behavior of people.

Julie says, “This is a clear and concise presentation of design fundamentals. It takes an instructor half a semester to get through these essentials! Thank you!”

Amir writes, “Nice presentation, really helpful content. Thanks!”

Steve comments, “Very nice. Clear. People that develop software should heed the values here.”

JC posted, “Thanks for the videos – nicely done on all fronts. Clear, concise and purposeful. Very nice series and hope to see more.”

So whatever you’re designing (website, game, system, software, GUI), go ahead and watch it now – it’s completely free.

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So, it’s a helpful and complete background and introduction for getting started with HTML, CSS, Spry, JavaScript, XML, and rich media content such as Flash, video, and online maps. Some of the many fundamen­tal topics covered include images, fonts, layout, hyperlinking, navigation, menus, panels, templates, animation, testing, and uploading. But note that this class is not just for beginners – even experienced Dreamweaver users are learning some­thing new here… (see reviews below)

Basically, if you’re looking to get going with website design and development, this is a nice way to get your feet wet (or expand your existing knowledge) with the industry-standard product in just three hours for free – regardless of whether you keep using it. If you want or need a free copy of Dreamweaver CS5 to walk through during the training, you can just download the fully-functional 30-day free trial.

Here is the new course:

It just came out this month and has already been rated five stars by most viewers…

Troy says, “This is a great tutorial series. I use Dreamweaver to build and keep up our depart­ment’s web site, and have for many years, but I learned many new things watching this series. The instructions are very, very clear and easy to follow.”

Wes writes, “I really enjoy and appreciate this entire series that Adobe has put together. I had no knowledge of HTML or Dreamweaver, but even this introduction series has excited me about continuing to learn the language and Adobe’s other products. Great job!”

Manu comments, “Simply superb! Easy to learn with clear visual aids! I’ve gone through a few others to learn but this tops the most!”

So go for it and watch it now – it’s completely free.

If you prefer training in written form instead of (or after) the above, here is an excellent and extensive six-step visual tutorial for Dreamweaver CS5 on building your first website: setting up your site and project files, creating the page layout, adding content to pages, adding the main image text, adding the Spry menu, and publishing your website.

As a next step, if you’d like to learn how to make a site which draws its content dynami­cally from a database (using Dreamweaver, PHP, and MySQL), see this three-part guide on creating your first dynamic website: setting up the site and database, developing the back end (including activating the forms to insert, update, and delete records), and displaying content from the database on a changing news page.

Each of the three series above include downloadable sample files to use as you follow the instruction, so be sure to look for those.

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• Free New Adobe CS5 Tutorials: 17+ Hours of Online Video Training

We’ve previously featured over 17 hours of free video tutorials for Creative Suite 5, plus three hours for Lightroom 3 – so here’s a brand new set for the recently-released Adobe Acrobat X Pro & Standard… In the free courses below, product experts share how to get started, the basics of the software, overviews of major new features, how to use key tools and functions, plus their favorite tips and most useful techniques. In total, there are three courses with 3½ hours of free content, spanning over 57 separate chapters.

If you need a copy of Acrobat X Pro to get going, you can just download a free 30-day trial.

See more detailed coverage on the key new features in Acrobat X, as well as the differences between earlier versions (Acrobat 10 versus 9, 8, and 7).

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In all the excitement last week with the hundreds of free online sessions from the Adobe MAX conference, there was a brand new product debut that should get just as much press. Adobe launched a free preview of their new Project ROME content creation and publishing applica­tion for print, photo, presentations, animation, and web. And this is a pretty cool tool if you haven’t checked it out yet. The streamlined interface with plenty of templates helps you get started quickly, and the “all-in-one” nature allows you to easily borrow and repurpose content across projects or from the cloud.

The best way to get a sense of it is a quick one-minute demo:

What is Project ROME – What Does it Do?

Project ROME is the most universal publishing software on the market, combining compre­hensive printing, imaging, animation and website solutions on one powerful and versatile multimedia platform. In ROME, we can start out by drawing a flyer and go on to creating an impressive online presentation from that same design – without having to change software or file format. You can save your project as PDF, images, Web pages, Flash (SWF), or vector graphics (SVG) files.

ROME connects users to a vibrant, asset-sharing internet community – so you never start from a blank page. Load images and clips directly from your computer or access an abundance of multimedia files online.

ROME is founded on portable Adobe AIR technology, which enables web applications to run as standalone programs without the constraints of a browser. As a result, ROME allows you to jump effortlessly between local (desktop) and web-based operation, so you can work on your files from virtually anywhere.

And ROME is extremely easy to use – all tools are contextual, tuned exactly to what you’re working on. There are no fixed palettes, no convoluted menus. The interface is intuitive and fluid, yet powerful – so the technology doesn’t get in your way of expressing ideas with video, audio, photos, graphics, text and animation.

Project ROME Reviews – What are People Saying?

Put simply, the reviews thus far have been very positive:

“After only a few minutes of using ROME all I can say is Wow!”
“This is what I was expecting from Adobe! It is the best content creation software I have ever used.”
“A great alternative to Apple’s iWork and iLife apps. The warp tool for images is better than what’s in Photoshop right now.”
“This is why I just love everything ADOBE. Keep the cutting-edge technology coming.”
“Project ROME is awesome! I love the ability to combine different publishing options, with animations and image editing!”
“You have done it again. As always Adobe innovates once again and improves upon everything else that has been done before.”
“Gorgeous. I just would like to say, thank you team – great job!”
“This is a real cool service/app that has the potential of really changing the collabo­ration landscape.”
“I have used this for a number of things now and find it very easy to use. Keep up the good work – great idea!”
“I think Adobe is going for world domination! Seriously though, this is a fantastic idea and it should be taken to its limits.”
“This is a great product. I’ve been looking for something like this.”
“ROME is really exciting – kudos to Adobe and the product creators!”

Adobe Project ROME Tutorial – Learn How to Get Started

After downloading the software, here’s a 20-minute, five-chapter video tutorial to help you get going, covering working with photos and vector graphics, creating animations and websites, and getting new templates and art using the Community Exchange:

ROME’s free product preview is available for a limited time, with the following minimum system requirements: Microsoft Windows XP or Mac OS X v10.5.x (or higher), screen resolution of at least 1024×600, 2 GB of RAM, and Adobe Flash Player 10.1.x or higher (for the browser-based version) or Adobe AIR 2.0.3 or higher (for the desktop version).

The program is part of Adobe’s ongoing move to add more product offerings to “lightweight” environments such as AIR and the cloud, and make them higher volume, lower cost, and subscription-based. With regards to pricing, Adobe says that when Project ROME is released in final form, it will be offered as an affordable, paid subscription service.

For more tutorials on the topics below plus much more information, or to download the free software itself, see Adobe’s Project ROME site.

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Some of these were truly hilarious and we’ve put together a reel of the best ones below. Perhaps the funniest of the 10-minute collection is the first one about new Adobe Acrobat X, but we’ll let you decide… Here’s the playlist:

Which one was your favorite? Share your vote and thoughts below…

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The Digital Publishing Suite will be released in the second quarter of 2011, likely in conjunction with a CS5.5 point release update. In the meantime, Adobe Labs has made some tools available now for writers to get started and create, preview and share their content in the new format. The tools include the Digital Content Bundler and Interactive Overlay Creator, plus the Digital Publishing Plug-in for InDesign, which allows InDesign to interface with and transfer information to the Digital Content Bundler.

With the Labs release, publishers can create and assemble digital publications now and add interactivity without writing code using InDesign CS5, as well as preview and share their content using a new Digital Content Preview Tool provided by Adobe and available in the Apple App Store. Other platforms and tablet devices are expected shortly.

See the video tutorial below for how to get started with the new Adobe Digital Publishing Suite. InDesign CS5 or later is required, so if you don’t currently have it, you can download a fully functional, 30-day trial version.

See more video training and overviews on Adobe TV’s Digital Publishing Channel.

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There’s a fantastic new resource available for After Effects users – a free three-hour in-depth tutorial on After Effects CS5. This introductory course covers a broad range of topics: learning the basics of compositing and animation, how to use keyframes as well as spatial and temporal interpolation, using parenting to group animated elements together, how to use masks and layers, introduction to effects, importing Photoshop documents into AE, syncing transitions to music, creating a master composition, how to render out your finished video to a standalone file, and more. The program is hands-on and includes downloadable sample files to follow along with for creating a motion graphic title sequence.

The free class is broken out into seven easily-digestable parts, and has already earned a five-star rating from viewers. It’s “learn by doing” and although the lessons are geared towards After Effects CS5, most of the concepts (though not all the product features or speed) apply to earlier versions such as CS4 or CS3. By the time you’re through, you’ll be able to make your own stunning motion graphic title sequence for a film using your software.

If you don’t already own After Effects CS5, it’s a phenomenal release and you can easily download the free 30-day trial from Adobe to get started with the training. (Note that After Effects CS5 requires a 64-bit system, so if you don’t have that yet, you may have to go with the free trial of After Effects CS4 instead… Then, if and when you’re ready to buy, you can get both of them together with a single purchase.)

Elsewhere, After Effects CS5 is garnering some great reviews – see what OSNews (“a very strong release“), Videomaker (“a must-have upgrade“) and Renderosity (“a solid release“) have to say about it…

If you’re new to After Effects, you may also want to read Getting Started with After Effects (CS4, CS5, & CS5.5) with a ton of tips from Adobe’s documentation lead Todd Kopriva.

Also see here for a comprehensive set of Adobe CS5 tutorials for all products.

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Back about six months ago (before CS5 was released), there was a lot of buzz surrounding sneak-peek videos about multiscreen authoring with HTML5 and CSS3, plus a new “Smart Paste” capability between Illustrator and Dreamweaver. These features are now becoming realized with some pretty cool tools to create and place inter­active vector-based content in live web pages across multiple devices and screen sizes, without the use of Flash or Silverlight. All that’s needed is HTML5 canvas support along with JavaScript.

The best thing you can do to get a sense of the new capabilities is watch the 17-minute video tutorial below. Then, here is a collection of helpful resources for getting started, with more to read below the video:

• Download the Illustrator CS5 HTML5 Pack (with installation instructions & user guide)
• The Official Adobe Press Release
• The User Community Discussion Forum

So put it all together and the implications here are several. First, Illustrator has now effectively become a HTML5 authoring tool for rich web content, bringing designers and developers closer together. Second, this continues the ongoing trend of integration and convergence amongst different products within the Creative Suite 5 toolset. Third, Adobe is serious about these open standards when they said, “We’re going to make the best tools in the world for HTML5″… Lastly, regardless of where things go with the “Flash Wars,” Adobe looks intent on staying on top of the design & development tool world for the future, placing and maintaining bets on all comers and participants.

The company itself has written:

Adobe makes money selling tools, not distributing viewing soft­ware. Those tools must address customer needs. If Flash Player is the right choice for some projects and HTML/CANVAS for others, no problem: we get paid to help you solve problems, not to force one implementation vs. another.

The HTML5 Pack for Dreamweaver that came out in May was officially incorporated into the Dreamweaver CS5 11.0.3 Update released two weeks ago. Expect the same thing to happen with this new Illustrator CS5 HTML5 Pack, after some evolution and incorporation of feedback. Note that you need to be running at least Illustrator CS5 version 15.0.1 to successfully install the add-on pack. Or if you don’t own the product yet, you can just download the full and free trial of the latest version of Illustrator (or Dreamweaver) CS5.

Note: Although the HTML5 and CSS3 specs are still being finalized, HTML5 and CSS3 can be used with any browser that currently supports them. Most recent versions of the leading browsers (Safari, Firefox, Opera, Internet Explorer, Chrome), support at least some (a few support many) HTML5 and CSS3 features.

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