MAX 2018 – the big annual conference intersecting creativity and Adobe technology – is returning this fall to Los Angeles, California… And continuing our long tradition of free Adobe giveaways, we’ve got one free regular full conference pass (worth US$1,595) to give away, courtesy of our friends at Adobe Systems! Plus, an exclusive US$400-off MAX ticket discount code that’s available to everyone… (details below)

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[UPDATE – Also see our new MAX 2018 Ticket Giveaway!]

Last fall, Adobe launched the all-new CC 2018 product line, a major milestone of creative tools and services marking the sixth major release of the CC product line. This latest version contains thousands of new features and advancements compared to CS6 (across all creative applica­tions), and this product is available only via Creative Cloud membership – a community which now surpasses 12 million paid subscribers.

Adobe CC 2018 is also known as the Creative Cloud 2018 Release… And that is exactly what we’re giving away for free below, and this offer is open to everyone world­wide.

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Some incredible news out this morning: Adobe has announced they’re making their popular new experience design tool – Adobe XD, a major part of the Creative Cloud – completely free(!) for anyone who wants to download and use it, forever:

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Adobe recently added a brand new product to the Lightroom ecosystem, surprisingly called “Lightroom CC.” This cloud-based photo service is different from the longstanding version of Lightroom that we know and love, the desktop-focused application which was simultaneously renamed to be “Lightroom Classic CC.”

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Here’s a very handy resource from Jamie Spencer – the complete set of essential keyboard shortcut cheat sheets for every major Adobe CC application… These comprehensive sheets can save you loads of time every day by speeding up your work and allowing you to bypass the need for mouse clicks and movements, getting you to the function you need in the fastest possible way. They are extremely helpful assets to have in your arsenal – and can easily be consulted anytime as an instant reference, or printed out in high resolution and posted, or even used as desktop wall­paper. They are completely free and available for download here:

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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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Over the years, we’ve put together a large collection of free Adobe books that we share with our readers here… This extensive set of helpful, no-cost books has now grown to over 30 different titles that you can legally download and use royalty-free, forever.

These digital books cover Creative Cloud, Creative Suite, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Muse, Lightroom and more – but up till now, we haven’t had a good and recent offering for Adobe Animate CC (formerly Flash Professional).

Fortunately, this has just changed with the publication of the new “Rich Content Creation for Multiple Platforms with Animate CC” guidebook, which comes from award-winning Adobe Education Leader and longtime Animate guru Joseph Labrecque.

Mr. Labrecque conducted a paid Animate CC workshop at the last Adobe MAX conference, and is now making the class’s training materials available to the general public completely free of charge. This special offer includes the main 104-page course workbook together with 17 MB of sample working assets, all of which you can download for free here.

Here is the overview description of this course:

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We’ve got another great resource for you – a freely-available collection of custom Photoshop textures to help set your work apart… This exclusive set of 29 different handcrafted textures has been released by War Unicorn Media at no cost and is 100% royalty-free. This collection comes complete with an 18-page guide (available online or as a download­able PDF), filled with tips and tricks on how to best use textures in your Photoshop workflow, as well as how to create your own!

Textures are super-easy to apply and use in Photoshop. Just load the texture into a new layer above your composition, and then set its Blending Mode and Opacity for how you want it to impact the photograph or image underneath. More details and ideas are given in the short tutorial video included below.

Here is James Rodel’s introduction from the accompanying guide, which is packed with examples and entitled, “Textures, the Universe, and You“:

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Here’s the new and updated edition of a very handy resource from James Wamser – a complete reference to all versions of Adobe InDesign ever released… Similar to his Photoshop handbook, it’s called called the Adobe InDesign New Features Guide, 1.0 to CC (2018), and this 111-page ebook is available for free download now:

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Adobe Acrobat DC 2018 is now shipping! If you hadn’t already known, “DC” stands for Document Cloud, which is Adobe’s set of integrated online services to help people and businesses better manage critical documents. At the heart of Document Cloud is Acrobat DC – the industry standard for creating, sharing and editing PDFs – which was completely redesigned for the initial DC 2015 milestone release three years ago. For more information, see: What Is the Document Cloud?

Acrobat continues as a desktop product in both Pro or Standard editions, and is available either via subscription or with a perpetual (one-off) license. Read more…