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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With the demise of Apple Aperture, and since Adobe dropped the price of both Lightroom + Photoshop to US$9.99/month with the CC Photography Plan, Lightroom has effectively become a de facto standard for digital photography management software…

As Lightroom’s usage and sophistication grows, and as image sizes and photo collections also continue to grow, there has been increasing need for a comprehensive guide to ensure the program is always running as fast as it can, and is optimized for best performance on your system.

Fortunately, widely-acclaimed author and ‘Lightroom Queen’ Victoria Bampton has just published such a guide – and better still, she is offering this helpful new book to the public for free!

The Adobe Lightroom Performance Guide is now out, and contains 11 chapters on every­thing you ever wanted to know about Lightroom and speed. It is available as a free downloadable book in PDF format. Here is an overview of the topics it covers:

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[UPDATE – Download the newer free Photoshop Elements 11 book!]

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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[UPDATE – Download the newer free Premiere Elements 11 book!]

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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[UPDATE – Download the newer free Adobe CS6 books (over 1,000 pages)!]

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 – Download the newer free Acrobat XI and X books!]

While we’re waiting for the release of Adobe Acrobat 10, you can save countless hours in minutes by getting more out of Acrobat 9… Increase your productivity with a free download of 21 Key Ways to Save Time with Acrobat 9, featuring simple, step-by-step tutorials designed for both basic and advanced users. Easily get up to speed in no time with this resource guide featuring one-page, printable “cheat sheets” on creating PDF documents, assembling PDF Portfo­lios, working with forms, Acrobat collaboration, keeping files secure, and more. The easy-to-use instructions introduce you to new ways to save time and simplify complex projects.

The eBook has five categories with step-by-step instructions for performing common tasks effi­ciently. Keep a copy of this PDF portfolio on your computer as a quick resource for learning new techniques. Here’s what the collection includes to help you unlock the power of Adobe Acrobat:

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Next to our Adobe software direct download links, easily the most popular resource here at ProDesignTools is the set of free Adobe books that we’ve put together over the years…

So we’re pleased to announce that, with the recent addition of the Photoshop & Lightroom Digital Photography Guide, this no-cost collection has now grown to more than 30 different titles that you can legally download and use royalty-free, forever. These eBooks comprise thousands of pages covering the CC and CS releases of all major Adobe products. So before you go and spend money for a book, you might want to check these out first!

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