Longtime readers know that we offer a series of free books for Adobe software with over 30 different titles that anyone can download on how to best use the different major products… These books have been extremely popular and well-received.

But since Adobe software is all about creating, for a long time there was a missing part: a collection of free books simply about building your creativity – something that everyone in the world can use and benefit from… So here is that set! You can legally download and use the five PDF e-books below to inspire your own creative process and help improve your work, no matter what you do in life. They are (in our view) all easy, enjoyable, and enriching reads.

Book #1: The Creative Aid Handbook (142 Pages)

Co-creators Richard Tapp and Nicole Smith of Kooroo Kooroo rightly describe The Creative Aid Handbook as a outside-of-the-box resource to get your creative juices flowing: “We wrote, designed, and illustrated a book featuring unusual tips to nurture your creative well-being, boost your creative intellect and foster internal inspiration. Meant to serve as a mini-resource for your creative projects and food for your creative thoughts. Read more…

With over 18 million paid members for Creative Cloud and growing, we often get this question from readers: “What’s a good book to get started with the most popular Adobe tools?” While there are a lot of great CC books for sale on Amazon, why not begin with an excellent title that’s available to everyone for free, and that you can download instantly?

Over the years, we’ve compiled a collection of over 30 free books that you can download and use for learning all of Adobe’s different creative tools… But there’s one volume that always stands out as a favorite – and even better, it has just been republished in a brand new expanded edition for the CC 2020 tools.

So if you’re just getting going with (or would like a solid primer covering) the core Creative Cloud design tools, then what better than a step-by-step guide that will teach you the essentials of Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Adobe XD from the ground up?

So here it is: the very helpful “Adobe Design Basics” that will give you all of this for free, courtesy of author Professor Thomas Payne… The book works 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.

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In November, Adobe shipped the new 2020 collection of tools and services – a milestone marking the eighth major release of the Creative Cloud product line, which replaced CS6 from 2012. This latest CC version contains thousands of new features and advancements compared to CS6 (across all creative applica­tions), and it is available only via Creative Cloud membership – a community which now surpasses 18 million paid subscribers.

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For decades now, Adobe has provided industry-standard standalone installers for their creative products, for many valid reasons… Recent examples include the company publicly posting the direct download links for virtually the entire CC 2019 and CC 2018 releases. In our view, the need is strong and they should continue to do the same going forward.

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Not long ago, Adobe added a brand new product to the Lightroom ecosystem, surprisingly called “Lightroom CC.” This cloud-based photo service was different from the longstanding version of Lightroom that we know and love, the desktop-focused application which was simultaneously renamed to be “Lightroom Classic.”

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In response to our How to Join Adobe’s Creative Cloud for Free post, we received this question from a reader:

Hi – is it really true that Adobe Bridge (the full version) is totally free to download and use forever, and I don’t have to pay for it or have a subscription?

The answer is yes, it’s absolutely true – although not that many people know about it because Adobe hasn’t really publicized it widely…

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Just back from Adobe MAX 2019 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 Pavilion floor, the buzz over mind-blowing “Sneak Peek” demos of cool new technology, and of course the fantastical MAX Bash party with 15,000 of your closest friends.

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Every year, Adobe’s creative product launches seem to get bigger – and this year is no exception… This morning, in front of a record 15,000 attendees at the annual MAX conference, Adobe unveiled the new CC 2020 Release, which feels like their biggest product launch since they first introduced Creative Cloud over seven years ago.

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Having originally launched almost eight years ago, by now you’ve heard about Adobe’s fast-growing Creative Cloud, you’ve dispelled the common myths about it, and perhaps are considering sub­scribing to CC now that over 18 million of your colleagues already have…

You probably also know that Adobe stopped development of the older “CS” releases back in 2012, and that there have been thousands of new product features, enhancements, and perform­ance improvements added to CC since Creative Suite ended, as well as integral new services.

But did you know that no matter what you do, you can sign up right now for a zero-cost class of membership that never expires and provides free benefits for life?  Anyone can have this free level currently in 83 countries worldwide, even if you still use the older tools instead, or even if you use no other Adobe products or services at all.

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A short while ago, Adobe shipped version 2020 of Adobe’s “Elements” line – and since Elements releases are now named by the upcoming year instead of a version number, this edition would be the equivalent of version 18 in the previous numbering system.

And continuing our tradition of publishing the direct download links for major Adobe products such as Creative Cloud, Lightroom 6/CC, and Acrobat DC, below you’ll find the direct links from Adobe’s servers for the free trials and full offline installers for the new releases of Photoshop Elements 2020 and Premiere Elements 2020, for both Windows and macOS.

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