CreativeTechs Tips

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I just spent (yet another) weekend getting our September course list posted. The upcoming class calendar is pretty cool. Take a look through the slate of upcoming free classes, and sign up for a couple that catch your interest:

Link: Photoshop Course (6-Months!)

Link: Digital Photography Course (10-Weeks)

Link: Lightroom Course (10-Weeks)

Link: Dreamweaver Course (10-Weeks)

Here is the problem: I’m leaving for an extended family vacation in two days. I’m frankly a little concerned that with so many classes starting at once, we’re not going to get the number of people we need signed up by the end of August.

Help Spread The Word! Our free training model only works when we’re sharing with a large worldwide audience. Help us keep these classes free.

I’m delighted to announce that instructor Erik Fadiman will be leading a special 10-Week Dreamweaver Course in our worldwide classroom starting in the fourth week of September.

Enroll via Email: Dreamweaver Course Enrollment.

The free weekly webinars are free. In order to join us, you’ll need to sign-up for a special weekly email notification we’ve created for this course.

We have dates set aside for this class. Erik will post a breakdown of the individual weeks we get closer to the start.

Week 1 – Sep 22
Week 2 – Sep 29
Week 3 – Oct 6
Week 4 – Oct 13
Week 5 – Oct 20
Week 6 – Oct 27
Week 7 – Nov 3
Week 8 – Nov 10
Week 9 – Nov 17
Week 10 – Nov 24

And yes, you can pass this offer along to friends, or even post it on your blog. Help spread the word. 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. John is currently developing material for this extended course, so if you have a topic you’d like to see him cover, mention it in the comments below.

Read the Full Tip »

I’m delighted to announce that instructor Steve Laskevitch will be leading a special 10-Week Lightroom Course in our worldwide classroom starting in the third week of September.

Enroll via Email: Lightroom Course Enrollment.

The free weekly webinars are free. In order to join us, you’ll need to sign-up for a special weekly email notification we’ve created for this course.

We have dates set aside for this class. Steve will post a breakdown of the individual weeks we get closer to the start.

Week 1, Sep 14 – Overview.
Week 2, Sep 21 – Importing
Week 3, Sep 28 – Library Module pt1
Week 4, Oct 5 – Library Module pt2
Week 5, Oct 12 – Develop Module pt1
Week 6, Oct 19 – Develop Module pt2
Week 7, Oct 26 – Exporting
Week 8, Nov 2 – Juggling Catalogs
Week 9, Nov 9 – Output Module
Week 10, Nov 16 – Editing in Photoshop

And yes, you can pass this offer along to friends, or even post it on your blog. Help spread the word. 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. John is currently developing material for this extended course, so if you have a topic you’d like to see him cover, mention it in the comments below.

Read the Full Tip »

Jason Hoppe’s first 10-Week Photoshop course was the success that kicked off our “free training” experiment. This time we’re taking things to a whole new level.

Want to enroll? Sign-up here: 6-Month Photoshop Course.

LIVE Webinar: www.gotomeeting.com/register/775748320
Date:Thursday, September 3, 2009
Time: 11am Pacific (Seattle) [Other Time Zones]
Duration: 90-120 Minutes

So what does a 6-Month Photoshop Course cover? Here is the tentative schedule. We’ve built this as an ongoing series of 5-week courses, building from basic fundamentals, up to some fairly advanced techniques. With a fun side-trip around the holidays for digital scrapbooking topics.

Course I – Photoshop Fundamentals
Sep 3 – Basics
Sep 10 – Layers
Sep 17 – Selections
Sep 24 – Masks
Oct 1 – Pen Tool

Course 2 – Color Correction
Oct 8 – Advanced Selections
Oct 15 – Color Correction pt1
Oct 22 – Color Correction pt2
Oct 24 – Cloning Basics
Nov 5 – Final Touches

Course 3 – Photoshop Fun
Nov 12 – Scrapbooking Techniques
Nov 19 – Brushes
Dec 3 – Layer Effects
Dec 10 – To Be Announced
Dec 17 – To Be Announced

Course 4 – Advanced Retouching
Jan 7 – Advanced Cloning Techniques
Jan 14 – Retouching Skin
Jan 21 – Retouching Hair
Feb 4 – Retouching Landscapes
Feb 11 – Repairing Digital Anomalies

Course 5 – To Be Announced!
Feb 25 – TBA
Mar 4 – TBA
Mar 11 – TBA
Mar 18 – TBA
Mar 25 – TBA

The dates may shift a bit as we get going. We’ll be fleshing out the details on the final five as that gets closer.

And yes, you can pass this offer along to friends, or even post it on your blog. Help spread the word. 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. We’ve left some open slots on our schedule, so if you have a topic you’d like to see us cover, mention it in the comments below.

Read the Full Tip »

I’m delighted to announce that instructor John Greengo will be leading a special 10-Week Digital Photography Course in our worldwide classroom starting in the first week of September.

Enroll via Email: Digital Photography Course Enrollment.

The free weekly webinars are free. In order to join us, you’ll need to sign-up for a special weekly email notification we’ve created for this course.

Here is the tentative schedule for this class. We may be adjusting this slightly as we get closer to the start.

Week 1, Sep 2 – Introduction
Week 2, Sep 9 – Digital Cameras
Week 3, Sep 16 – Lenses
Week 4, Sep 23 – Exposure I
Week 5, Sep 30 – Exposure II
Week 6, Oct 7 – Focus
Week 7, Oct 14 – Aesthetics I
Week 8, Oct 21 – Aesthetics II
Week 9, Oct 28 – The Gadget Bag
Week 10, Nov 4 – Full Exposure

And yes, you can pass this offer along to friends, or even post it on your blog. Help spread the word. 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. John is currently developing material for this extended course, so if you have a topic you’d like to see him cover, mention it in the comments below.

Read the Full Tip »

Tomorrow we’re trying something fun: an all-day online Photoshop Marathon. We’ll be rerunning recordings of Jason Hoppe’s full 10-Week Photoshop Course from earlier this year, with a couple live Q&A to keep things interesting.

Three Ways To Watch:

Method 1- GoToWebinar:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/643882369

Method 2- TweetChat:
http://tweetchat.com/room/creativetechs

Method 3- Ustream.tv:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/creativetechs
Read the Full Tip »

Every Flash project is different. Once you’ve covered the basics of moving around Flash, there is still so much more to learn. So, in the spirit of Retouch Tuesday we bring you our latest experiment in challenge-the-instructor-training: Finish My FLAH.

We’re asking you to send in your real-life Flash documents and concepts. If we find a couple good examples, we’ll invite a few couple participants from around the world to join Erik Fadiman for a personalized live Flash training session.

Send Your Files: CreativeTechs YourSendit Dropbox

Include a description of what you are trying to accomplish, and tell us challenges you are running into. Erik will pick interesting challenges and work one-on-one with a couple participants, while the rest of us get to watch and learn from the examples. This is an experiment. We know this concept works for Photoshop retouching. Will it work for Flash production too?

Today’s Illustrator webinar was quite an adventure! Ten minutes before the start of class, our Internet connection suddenly dropped (apparently because of a nearby maintenance crew). Luckily we managed to switch over to our slower emergency connection without too much chaos.

Of all days, today was the day that we received a slew of new visitors from two big referral sources. So to make up for today’s Internet glitch, we’re posting the Illustrator Week 7 class free for everyone to enjoy.

In return we ask is that you help encourage more great referrals! Visit Adobe’s Facebook page and Vectip’s Twitter feed to say that you really appreciate them spreading the word about CreativeTechs training:

#1: The Adobe Illustrator Facebook Page! Tell them it was good!

#2: Vectips Twitter Feed – Reply to say thanks for the Tweet!

Quality and quantity both help here. Let’s show our appreciation with some great feedback to them. Thanks!

PS. Anyone interested in signing up for other free weekly classes should visit our training calendar. Or if you are interested in purchasing full recordings of our past courses, visit our course purchase page.

I’m delighted to announce a new 4-week Digital Photography Course starting in two week! This special course is taught by photographer John Greengo from the PBS series Art Wolfe’s Travels to the Edge. This 8 minute video gives you a great overview of not only the content, but the style in which John teaches.

Want to enroll? Us this link to enroll: Digital Photography Course Enrollment.

July 15: Week 1 – Overview.
July 22: Week 2 – Your Camera.
July 29: Week 3 – Your Technique.
Aug 5: Week 4 – Composition Secrets.

I’ve watched John teach. He does a remarkable job making technical photography subjects relevant, understandable and yes, fun.

We are very fortunate to have John joining us.

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

Read the Full Tip »

Tuesday afternoons our resident Photoshop guru, Jason Hoppe, spends two hours solving real-world retouching challenges in front of a live worldwide audience. This started as an experiment for participants in our 10-Week Photoshop Course. SInce then it has grown into a weekly event with a dedicated and growing audience.

Here is an amazing example from last week. Jason spends half and hour rescuing a 1957 wedding photo that was damaged in Hurricane Katrina. If you’ve never joined us for Retouch Tuesday, this video is a great example of what you are missing.

Read the Full Tip »