CreativeTechs Tips

Every image is different. Once you learn retouching fundamentals, there is still so much more to learn. Thus, we bring you Retouch Tuesday. We’re asking you to send in your real-life photos. We’ll pick a couple retouching challenges, and each Tuesday, we’ll invite a few couple participants from around the world to join Jason for a personalized live retouching session.

GoToWebinar Link: Retouch Tuesday

Send us your photos using Jason’s YouSendIt Dropbox. Include a description of the retouching you need to do on this image. Jason will work one-on-one with a couple lucky participants, while the rest of us get to watch and learn from the examples. This is an experiment, so let us know what you think.

To attend, make sure you are enrolled in our current 10-Week Photoshop Course. We’ll include a webinar link in the weekly email notifications we send to that list.

Enroll: Free 10-Week Photoshop Course

We’re scheduling these sessions 4 hours later in the day than our normal class time. Participants in Australia should be particularly happy about not having to wake up quite so early. Read on for scheduling times

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Popularity: 2% [?]

Need to build some Flash skills? Swinburne University in Australia has posted almost 10 hours of free Flash videos taught by members of their design faculty. You can access the tutorials directly from their podcasts website, or subscribe in iTunes:

Swinburne Podcasts: Faculty of Design – Flash

iTunes U: Swinburne University Flash Tutorials

This collection of tutorials features training in Flash MX 2004. That’s a few versions back, but the learning applies to newer versions of Flash as well. It’s a good, free place to start building your Flash skills.

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Popularity: 1% [?]

You know all about Photoshop. You’ve worked in Illustrator. But Flash remains a mystery. That’s about to change.

In this special, free, 90-minute workshop, instructor Erik Fadiman helps you leverage what you already know about Photoshop and Illustrator to start working in Flash for the first time. Sign-up for this special class here:

Sign-Up: Flash Basics Workshop

Read on for time zone details. Read the Full Tip »

Popularity: 1% [?]

This is a full recording of a one-hour personalized retouching session between trainer Jason Hoppe and photographer Gary Gross of Dog Photography of New York. Gary kindly gave us permission to use this recording as an example of how our private 1-on-1 training works.

Jason is available for private 1-on-1 Photoshop training to anyone around the world. You bring your own photos, and spend an hour with Jason working on your specific challenges. Contact us for details, or to schedule a private session.

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Popularity: 2% [?]

Longtime readers of this tips newsletter know we love a good cheatsheet. When I’m mastering a new graphics application, I’ll tack a concise list of keyboard shortcuts on the wall next to where I’m working. If you are anything like me, you’ll dig these free shortcut guides from Noble Desktop:

Noble Desktop Keyboard Shortcut Guides

This collection of free PDF cheatsheets include guides for InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, and QuarkXPress (Mac or PC format). Download a few, print them out, and start saving time.

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Popularity: 1% [?]

The seventh week of our 10-week Photoshop course is the last class on fundamentals before Jason digs into the deeper topics of photo retouching and color correction. This class on brushes was a surprisingly fun workshop! Who knew there was so much ground to cover?

The live webinars are open to everyone worldwide (up to our 1,000 limit). And we sell the downloads afterwards for a small fee:

Purchase: Photoshop Wk 1 – Basics ($15)
Purchase: Photoshop Wk 2 – Layers ($15)
Purchase: Photoshop Wk 3 – Selection Basics ($15)
Purchase: Photoshop Wk 4 – Advanced Selections ($15)
Purchase: Photoshop Wk 5 – Layer Masks ($15)
Purchase: Photoshop Wk 6 – Pen Tool ($15)
Purchase: Photoshop Wk 7 – Brush Tools ($15)
Purchase: Photoshop Wk 8 – Retouching ($15)
Purchase: Photoshop Bonus – Color Management Theory ($15)

Purchase: Special: Pre-purchase all 10-Weeks ($60 Special. See Note Below)

Note: The discount price for the 10-Week download bundle will be creeping up by $5 each week for the remaining weeks of our course. So, next week it will be $60, and then $65 the week after.

The cost of each week’s download includes a 1-hour QuickTime movie of that week’s class, along with a PDF handout, and up to 1-hour of extra audience Q&A. We’re offering a special prepurchase discount of the full 10-weeks. You’ll be able to download the PDF handout on the day of class, and a recording of each completed class about 4 days later.

Popularity: 1% [?]

The sixth week of our 10-week Photoshop course brings us two new downloads: Jason Hoppe’s class on drawing with the Adobe pen tool; And Steve Laskevitch’s talk on color management theory.

The live webinars are open to everyone worldwide (up to our 1,000 limit). And we sell the downloads afterwards for a small fee:

Purchase: Photoshop Wk 1 – Basics ($15)
Purchase: Photoshop Wk 2 – Layers ($15)
Purchase: Photoshop Wk 3 – Selection Basics ($15)
Purchase: Photoshop Wk 4 – Advanced Selections ($15)
Purchase: Photoshop Wk 5 – Layer Masks ($15)
Purchase: Photoshop Wk 6 – Pen Tool ($15)
Purchase: Photoshop Wk 7 – Brush Tools ($15)
Purchase: Photoshop Wk 8 – Retouching ($15)
Purchase: Photoshop Bonus – Color Management Theory ($15)

Purchase: Special: Pre-purchase all 10-Weeks ($60 Special. See Note Below)

Note: The discount price for the 10-Week download bundle will be creeping up by $5 each week for the remaining weeks of our course. So, next week it will be $60, and then $65 the week after.

The cost of each week’s download includes a 1-hour QuickTime movie of that week’s class, along with a PDF handout, and up to 1-hour of extra audience Q&A. We’re offering a special prepurchase discount of the full 10-weeks. You’ll be able to download the PDF handout on the day of class, and a recording of each completed class about 4 days later.

Popularity: 1% [?]

When you are drawing with the Adobe pen tool, keep an eye on those small modifiers that appear in the lower-right of the pen icon. They change as you use the pen tool depending on what you do or which part of a path you hover over.

If you are new to the pen tool (or want a quick refresher) print this handy cheat sheet and train yourself to pay attention to the subtle cursor changes. Once you get to know them, the different icons remind you of the action you are about to perform. Read the Full Tip »

Popularity: 2% [?]

Starting this May, CreativeTechs is offering a free, 10-week, worldwide, InDesign course. To make this happen, we need at least 1,000 people signed up to participate, so help us spread the word!

Want to enroll? Sign-up here: InDesign CS4 Course Enrollment.

Jason Hoppe, our Adobe Certified Instructor, has designed a comprehensive course that covers InDesign CS4 in detail. If you’ve been meaning to improve your InDesign skills, now is the perfect opportunity:

Week 1, May 14 – Interface & New Document
Week 2, May 21 – Working with Type
Week 3, May 28 – Shapes, Smart Guides, Pathfinder
Week 4, June 4 – Color
Week 5, June 11 – Images and Links
Week 6, June 18 – Layers, Making PDFs, Printing
Week 7, June 25 – Style Sheets
Week 8, July 2 – Master Pages
Week 9, July 9 – Tables
Week 10, July 16 – Finishing Details.

And yes, you can pass this offer along to friends, or even post it on your blog. Help spread the word. As I mentioned, we need a minimum of 1,000 people enrolled to make this free class viable.

Read on for an extended Q&A, and to ask your own questions in the comments. Jason is currently working on the class materials. If you have a topic you’d like to see him cover, mention it in the comments below.

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Popularity: 20% [?]

If you’ve ever wondered how to create animated GIFs in Photoshop, we’ve created a simple tutorial with some example files you can download and try out.

We use a lot of animated GIF files in our weekly tips. They are fun to build, and better for our email subscribers because Flash animations are not supported in most email readers.

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Popularity: 100% [?]