New limited-time offer – discount pricing on award-winning Adobe Photoshop and Premiere Elements 8 software… Make summer photos look extraordinary! Adobe’s Elements 8 products make it easy to edit, enhance and share photos and video clips. Create amazing images and incredible movies, and use them together in cinematic slide shows and more.

The deal is available in many countries and varies a little depending on location. In North America, it’s save $50 on Photoshop and Premiere Elements together, or $30 on either product alone. In Europe and the U.K., it’s save 30% on the full bundle, or 15% on the single products or upgrades. No coupon or voucher code is needed to take advantage of this promotion, just click through.

The bottom line in the U.S. is you can now get both of these top-selling products for a terrific package price of $99.99. Photoshop or Premere Elements by itself would be $69.99.

If you want to try out the software first, you can download the free trials now and then just make your purchase before the offer expires.

This special offer is valid until August 16, 2010 for purchases made through the Adobe Store. Education, OEM and volume licensing customers are not eligible for this sale.

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The last time we saw the “#1 Photoshop Fan,” he was camped out all night waiting for the release of Photoshop CS5… Now he’s back (in the funny video below) and helping launch a new contest to find Adobe’s “Next Photoshop Evangelist” – and if it’s you, you’ll win a new copy of Creative Suite 5 plus a paid trip to Photoshop World in Florida next March, including the chance to demo your work at the conference, roundtrip coach airfare, lodging, and meals.

To enter: “Upload a two-minute Photoshop video tutorial demonstrating why you should be the Next Photoshop Evangelist. Your video must use Photoshop CS5, a new Photoshop CS5 feature, and, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Photoshop, incorporate the concept of ‘20′ some­where in the final image. Have fun!”

If you need Photoshop CS5 to use for the contest, you can easily download the fully-working free trial for 30 days. For choosing a new feature to use, see the list of new CS5 features for Photoshop (and all other products).

The submission deadline is August 24th and then twelve finalists will be chosen by Adobe, with the grand prize winner being selected by the Photoshop community on Facebook. All twelve finalists will be showcased by Adobe on several venues. So show off your Photoshop skills and sharing abilities and you could be on your way to Florida next winter with a new CS5 suite on your laptop and some fame to your name.

And now, here’s that entertaining video with the otherwise nameless, #1 Photoshop Fan:

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It’s been over a month now since Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 completed its beta program and the final version was released, so it’s time to see what most of the reviews are saying out there…

In our earlier article on LR3 tutorials and other resources, we covered what Expert Reviews said: “The new lens correction and noise reduction tools make Lightroom 3 a must-have upgrade from previous versions (just $99 for the upgrade edition), while its powerful management tools remain as good as ever. For many people Lightroom 3 will be the only bit of photo-editing software they need, but even those that have to turn to Photoshop for more-advanced image effects will find Lightroom 3 an invaluable management and pre-processing tool.”

Bright Hub gives the software a perfect 5 out of 5 overall rating and concludes, “It is easy to end this Lightroom 3 review with full marks for Adobe. This product stands head and shoulders above the competition in an increasingly crowded sector. It is a great choice for professionals and advanced amateurs who are looking to for the best way to improve their digital workflow, and it has an appropriate learning curve for those who are new to this series of editors. In short, it may be all you ever need.”

Digital Photography Review (DPReview) writes, “In its original incarnation, Lightroom was little more than a sophisticated file organizer attached to an image manipulation and RAW conversion engine. Four years on, and Lightroom 3 remains primarily a workflow tool, but what sets it apart from other, purely organizational software (and increasingly its predecessors) is its impressive image manipulation capabilities. Lightroom 3 is a very good piece of software. During the time that I have been working on this review, I have more or less replaced Photoshop CS5 for my personal photography with Lightroom 3. Far from feeling handicapped I have been surprised by how much more efficient my workflow has become.”

PhotoRadar renders its verdict: “Lightroom 3 is truly a photogra­phers’ tool, packed with a range of new features, including advanced tools for lens correction and noise reduction. Photographers who need nothing more than speed and quality should seriously consider using it as their primary software. It’s more than accelerated speeds and impressive quality that make it stand out – it is a total workflow solution and creates a compelling argument to ditch Photoshop CS.”

Wired Magazine says, “Lightroom 3 is reworked from the ground up to create a fast, proficient and generally awesome photo editing experience. Adobe rewrote much of the underlying code and it shows the minute you fire it up. Everything about Lightroom 3 is really freaking fast when compared to Lightroom 2. There’s greatly-improved noise reduction and lens correction, and if you’ve got a RAW-capable point-and-shoot camera that is capable of high ISO settings, Lightroom 3 is worth the money for the noise reduc­tion alone. While not without its shortcomings, Adobe Lightroom 3 secures Lightroom’s place as the Cadillac of RAW editors and is more than worth the modest upgrade price.”

Lightroom 3 will run well on 32-bit or 64-bit computers, and is designed for Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, or Mac OS (see full system requirements). It can be installed side-by-side with earlier Lightroom versions without difficulty or interference.

Want to try it out for free yourself? Just download a fully-working free trial and you can be up and running in minutes.

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With our post last week for five hours of free tutorials for Elements 7 and 8, it begged the question – when will Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 and Premiere Elements 9 be available?

Adobe historically ships a new version of Elements every year, in the fall – but when exactly? Let’s do some digging and find the release schedules for recent versions:

Funny things happened in 2008 with the launch of CS4 happening around the same time (September 23) – but if you exclude that occasion then the trend is definitely for the Elements release date happening in late September, just after back-to-school. Also, Adobe has shipped both Mac and Windows versions for six out of the eight Photoshop Elements releases, and lately Adobe has demonstrated increasing Mac support in other products, so we believe we’ll see both platforms supported again for Photoshop Elements 9.0.

So put it all together and we forecast that Photoshop and Premiere Elements 9 will ship on or about September 22, 2010, with PSE9 available on both Windows and Mac OS.

One question remains: what is likely to be in the new products? The current Elements 8 was largely inherited from CS4, so with CS5 out now we should see some nice innovations. Some have wondered if we might be so lucky to see “wow” additions like Content-Aware Fill or Puppet Warp coming in Photoshop Elements 9 – but our sense is these new features are a bit too fresh and flagship to move down to Elements at this time, and Adobe will likely keep them as “must-have” functions in Photoshop CS5 at least until CS6 and Photoshop Elements 10, which could arrive together in the fall of 2011.

To see the feature addition history for the latest three releases of Elements, you can compare the different versions for: Photoshop Elements for Windows, Photoshop Elements for Mac, or Premiere Elements. What would you like to see in Elements 9?

Check our track record for forecasting other major Adobe product releases like Creative Suite 5, Lightroom 3, and Acrobat 10.

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“Time is money.” Or maybe it’s, “money is time,” can never remember which… Regardless, something that saves you time is saving you money. And if a product saves you enough time to more than pay for itself, it could be called a smart purchase.

With that in mind, there are three new performance studies out for Adobe CS5 products from the independent technology research firm, Pfeiffer Consulting. The time savings are impressive – on average, CS5 is two to three times faster than CS4 for 21 features and 130 performance benchmarks tested in Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, After Effects, and Premiere Pro.

The full reports with results:

1. Adobe Creative Suite 5: How Key Design Applications Increase Your Productivity
2. Adobe Photoshop CS5: 64-bit Performance and Efficiency Measures
3. Adobe CS5 Production Premium: New Efficiencies for Today’s Production Realities

Here are some of the major findings:

• The productivity of Photoshop CS5 with benchmarked operations such as Content-Aware Fill is significantly boosted over techniques available in previous releases, almost five times faster. Some other features like straightening images are nearly 4x as fast.
• InDesign CS5 offers a new Selection tool that makes object modification significantly faster than with previous releases. Working with multi-column text or multiple page sizes is much easier and faster than in the past. Grid-enabled tools speed the creation of multi-element designs.
• Productivity features introduced with Illustrator CS5 include variable-width strokes, enhanced arrow-creation options, faster ways of joining paths, among others, which provide significant measurable productivity gains.
• Cross-platform native 64-bit support of several key CS5 applications allows multiple pro­grams running in parallel to share available memory in a highly efficient way, and provides creative professionals with new ways of harnessing the power of modern computing hardware and system software.
• Photoshop CS5 running in a 64-bit environment was up to 15 times faster compared with CS4 running on a 32-bit system in some of the benchmarks for this project.
• Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 introduces the Mercury Playback Engine, a set of technologies that can significantly increase productivity in high-definition production workflows.
• Processing of H.264 video from popular DSLR cameras was over five times faster with Premiere Pro CS5 than with CS4.
• 64-bit support allows After Effects CS5 to work with extended memory configurations, and significantly increases the number of frames of a composition (by up to 20x) that can be previewed from memory.
• After Effect’s new Roto Brush automates and redefines a particularly time-consuming task of the modern post-production workflow – clocking up to 11 times faster than traditional rotoscoping techniques, while producing a cleaner result.
• The hardware acceleration, parallel processing and other performance improvements introduced in Adobe CS5 Production Premium provide a very significant and in some cases spectacular increase in performance and efficiency.

Premiere Pro CS5 and After Effects CS5 are 64-bit only applications. Photoshop CS5 comes in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. If you need 32-bit versions of Adobe After Effects or Premiere Pro, see this page.

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We’ve previously covered 14 hours of free video tutorials for Creative Suite 5, plus three hours for Lightroom 3 – so here’s a chance for Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements… Below the experts share how to get started, the basics of the programs, new features, plus their favorite tips and techniques. Most of the lessons will work for either version 8 or 7. All together there is five hours of free content, spanning over 50 chapters.

The majority of the videos were produced by Lynda.com, which is another excellent source of online tutorials (some free, some paid), and just released a new app for software training on the iPhone.

If you need a copy of either Elements product for your work, just download a free trial.

For Premiere Elements, the set of videos isn’t as comprehensive, but there’s still some good material here:

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If you missed your calling as a 19th-century post-Impressionist painter, here’s your second chance… Adobe recently released the fast and free Pixel Bender Plug-in for Photo­shop CS5, which adds new image processing algorithms (filters or effects) in a hardware-independent manner. There are dozens of free filters available, including one for an oil paint effect. Pixel Bender also runs cross-platform in After Effects and Flash, so all filters and their behaviors are portable among various Adobe products.

Installation of the Pixel Bender Plug-in is easy, provided you already have Photoshop CS5 installed. If you don’t yet have Photoshop CS5, you can just download the full 30-day free trial. The Pixel Bender Gallery is initially populated with 13 filters that come with with the plugin. The one we’ll focus on today is the OilPaint filter, with two video tutorials below demonstrating detailed examples of its use. The tips and techniques shared will help you use the tools to turn an ordinary photo into something special – “makes a great gift!”

Adobe Pixel Bender Plug-in Video Tutorials

These how-to’s come courtesy of Adobe Photoshop guru Russell Brown – the first one is a two-part playlist showing how the swirling church image above was created, and the second video walks through more advanced painting methods with the Pixel Bender tools:

If you want to download more filters, visit the Pixel Bender Exchange; and if you’d like to write your own, see the toolkit and other resources at the Pixel Bender Technology Center.

Recent Photoshop CS5 Video Tutorials

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Over the next six weeks Adobe is launching a new series of in-depth online seminars to learn the best and get the most out of some top CS5 products, including InDesign, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, and Flash Professional…

The presentations are 90-minute live “deep dives” with Adobe product experts where you can get firsthand detailed information on the new features of these releases, see demonstrations, and get direct answers to your questions. All sessions are from 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM ET on upcoming Tuesdays, and will be presented in English:

Deep Dive: Adobe Illustrator CS5
Tuesday, July 13, 11:30am – 1:00pm US/Eastern
Complimentary Registration

Deep Dive: Adobe InDesign CS5
Tuesday, July 27, 11:30am – 1:00pm US/Eastern
Complimentary Registration

Deep Dive: Adobe Flash Professional CS5
Tuesday, August 10, 11:30am – 1:00pm US/Eastern
Complimentary Registration

Deep Dive: Adobe Premiere Pro CS5
Tuesday, August 24, 11:30am – 1:00pm US/Eastern
Complimentary Registration

The only requirements to participate are a web browser with an Internet connection and Adobe Flash Player.

If you’re also interested in Photoshop or Lightroom, this additional free webinar is a bonus:

  Professional Photographer Workflow — Adobe Photoshop CS5 and Adobe Lightroom
  Thursday, July 15, 2010, 1:00pm – 2:00pm US/Eastern — Watch On-Demand

Adobe Digital Imaging Evangelist Julieanne Kost will demonstrate how you can leverage the tight integration between Adobe Photoshop CS5 and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom software to create a completely fluid workflow to manage and edit images. Learn how to easily select multiple photos in Lightroom and automatically open them in Photoshop CS5 to merge them into a panorama, an HDR image, or a multilayered Photoshop document. Discover the ease of “Edit in” the power of presets for exporting files as well as how to hand off images from Lightroom to Photoshop CS5 to automat­ically run actions for speed and efficiency.

[Photo credit: javiy]

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The Adobe Student and Teacher Editions look like a great deal. They offer big discounts, as much as 80% off normal prices. They’re available for most of Adobe’s product line, including Creative Suite 5, Lightroom 3, Acrobat 9, and Elements 8. They can be purchased by anyone who qualifies – primary and secondary school students, college or university students, faculty, teachers, and administrators. Even part-time students or teachers can be eligible, and there is no age limitation. They’re available pretty much worldwide in many languages on both Windows and Mac, and you don’t need any kind of coupon or promotion code to get the deep discounts.

So what’s the catch? Is the Academic software different or limited somehow? Is there any sort of time restriction, time limit, or time out – do Adobe Student Editions expire? Or are they unusable for commercial purposes?

The answer to all of these questions is fortunately no: all Education products are identical in features and functionality in every respect to the current standard versions – the only differ­ences are the prices and some of the licensing terms… The prices, as mentioned, are a real bargain – for example, instead of US$999 for Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended, you pay only $199; instead of $1,799 for CS5 Design Premium (an eight-product suite including Photoshop Extended), you get it for $449. The Student and Teacher Editions can be utilized for personal as well as commercial use. And after graduation or completion of coursework, you can continue to use the software.

But it’s true there are some limitations as compared to the regular editions… Happily they are all fairly minor:

• Each eligible person may purchase only one copy per product title.
• Student and Teacher Edition software may be used on your own private computer only.
• The software is not transferrable, and may not be resold or given to others.
• You validate eligibility after placing your order to receive your unique serial number key.
• Student editions cannot be upgraded to other, future education editions – but the student price is often lower than the normal upgrade price anyway… However, if you no longer qualify to purchase another Student Edition when the future CS6 or CS7 comes out (e.g., after graduation), you can still upgrade to the commercial version at its discounted upgrade price at that time – which is another substantial savings.

So why take your chances on the malware in a pirated or bootleg version of CS5 when you can get the real deal – legitimate, supported, and safe – for up to 80% off, direct via instant download from Adobe?

Here’s a great FAQ that answers all of these questions in more detail, plus others you may have.

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OK, so your old computer is running out of gas, you’re upgrading or changing systems, adding a new machine, or switching from a PC to a Mac, or vice versa — and you want to move over your purchased Adobe CS5 (or CS4 or CS3 or other) software — what do you do, and how do you do it?

As we’ve covered previously here, you are generally allowed to install and activate most Adobe software on up to two computers, with the restriction that the software can not used on both systems at the same time. So right off the bat, you might be good to go with installing the software on a second computer, although you may wish to double-check the licensing agreement for your product to be sure.

Adobe uses software activation to control how many simultaneous computers can install or run CS5 at once. So if you’re already at your limit of two computers and want to transfer your license over to a new or different system, then you first need to deactivate the software from the old computer. In the program, click Help > Deactivate, and then follow the instructions in the wizard to deactivate the software. If you have installed a suite product, you will be deact­ivating the entire suite by deactivating any one of the point products included in that suite.

If you’re uninstalling Adobe software from a computer, deactivate it first to ensure its license is freed up. If you deactivate but don’t uninstall, the next time you run Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, InDesign, Acrobat, or any of the other CS5 applications on that computer, you’ll be asked for a serial number or to start a 30-day free trial period.

Once deactivation is complete, you are free to go ahead and enter your serial number key to activate a copy of the software installed elsewhere, or use it to reactivate the same applica­tion on that PC after reinstalling (for example, if you are upgrading operating systems from XP or Vista to Windows 7). And you should be all set.

If you run into any problems with the deactivation/reactivation process, you’ll have a 30-day window during which the software will work in trial mode to give you enough time to contact Adobe Support and get things resolved.

How to Switch Platforms from PC to Mac

Now how about if you’re also changing platforms, like from Windows to Mac, or vice versa – and want to take your Creative Suite 5 license with you, and/or upgrade from CS2, CS3, or CS4 to CS5 while making the switch? After completing the deactivation process above it gets a little more complicated, because most Adobe software is licensed for a single platform only. But you can do what’s called a “crossgrade” from one to the other, which is no charge (except for shipping costs) and can be submitted online through Adobe Customer Service.

All product configurations (including Student and Teacher Editions) are eligible for exchange.

There are a few provisos. One is you need to have a registered serial number to qualify (but that just takes a few minutes if you haven’t already). You must also be prepared to sign and return a Letter of Software Destruction for the programs on the old platform. But perhaps the most important is you can’t crossgrade from an older version to the same previous version – you can only move to the current version (CS5), paying any applicable upgrade costs.

So if you need to do both an upgrade and a platform swap, the fastest and easiest way is to first buy the upgrade online and then submit the crossgrade online. Then if you chose to get the new product shipped to you rather than via instant download, you can simply download and run the 30-day free trial while you’re waiting for the package to arrive – and then later just convert the trial into a permanent full version with the serial key from the product box.

How to Change from One Language to Another

Note that this same procedure will also work for requesting a change from one language set to another for a given Adobe/CS5 application… Just follow the crossgrade procedure above but choose a new and different language instead of a different platform.

One notable exception is Adobe Lightroom 3 which is sold as multiplatform and multilanguage software so would not require a crossgrade.

Hopefully that should do it! Please let us know if this article helped you out, or any questions you may have in the comments below.

If you’d like to move away from shuffling serial numbers altogether, consider an Adobe CS5 volume license to simplify management instead of single-user copies… For a lower cost, you can get a site license with a single serial number for your entire team.

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As we reported last month, Adobe is working on a Lightroom-related app for Apple’s iPad – but since it may be a while before we see it being released, in the meantime here are some handy presets to export/publish your photos to the iPad for use as a presentation device or display portfolio…

On the iPad, images will look better if they are saved, sent, and displayed at the size of the iPad’s screen rather than having iPhoto or the iPad resize them down. Also the iPad won’t automatically fill the entire screen with an image if its aspect ratio is different from the iPad’s screen size – instead you’ll get black bars at the edges (similar to a letterboxing effect).

So the two free presets linked here take these factors into account, and it’s your choice which of them to use… The first preset will preserve all photos at original size and aspect ratio (and the iPad will automatically add black bars to adjust at the edges), and the second preset will fit the photos to the full iPad screen (by automatically doing a center-based crop in Light­room when it exports).

The difference can be seen in the photos below… When installing the presets, be sure to follow the instructions carefully. [Via]

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Adobe Captivate 5 has just been released and it’s already been called a “must-have update” by Learning Solutions Magazine… Captivate is Adobe’s industry-leading rapid authoring tool for eLearning solutions, used to create software demonstrations, interactive simulations, branch­ing scenarios, self-running presentations, and randomized quizzes without programming. Perhaps the most notable change with Captivate 5 is Adobe broke from the code history of previous versions to add Mac OS support and in so doing, took the opportunity to completely rearchitect the application from the ground-up – and it clearly shows.

Overall, the performance, interface, and usability improvements from the rewrite make this much more than a simple upgrade, it’s more like a brand new product. The new user interface is similar to the Creative Suite 5 interfaces, and is well-integrated with other recent Adobe tools. And because the product now runs (and works the same) on a Mac – plus uses the same files – you can now create software simulations of Mac applications. You can instantly download a free trial for either platform, although first double-check the minimum system requirements.

Here’s a quick list of some of the other new features:

Captivate 5 is part of two larger suites from Adobe: the eLearning Suite 2 and the Technical Communication Suite 2.5. Both are freshly updated and integrated for the arrival of the new version of Captivate, yielding significant roundtripping performance gains. eLearning Suite 2 is the complete toolbox for efficiently creating professional eLearning content end-to-end, and combines Captivate, Flash Pro, Dreamweaver, Photoshop Extended, Acrobat Pro, Soundbooth, and Presenter, with additional tools and services. TCS 2.5 is the essential solution for author­ing, managing, reviewing, and publishing technical content and documentation, and includes Captivate, Photoshop, Acrobat Pro Extended, RoboHelp, FrameMaker, and Presenter, with supporting tools and services.

The price for Captivate 5 is US$799 for the full version, and $299 to upgrade from Captivate 4 or 3. Teachers and students can grab the full education version for just $299, or 63% off. Languages available include English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, and Korean.

The eLearning Suite 2 is $1,799 for full, from $599 to upgrade, and $599 for education, and the Technical Communication Suite 2.5 is $1,899 for full, from $299 to upgrade, and $749 for education.

Learn more or instantly download a free trial of Adobe Captivate 5, or eLearning Suite 2, or TCS 2.5; see the Captivate 5 customer quote sheet, watch the on-demand seminar “What’s New in Captivate 5,” or check out the new eLearning Video Channel from Adobe TV.

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Now Shipping: Rapidly create engaging eLearning experiences.

Adobe® Captivate® 5 lets you rapidly author and maintain professional eLearning experiences including software demonstrations, application simulations, and branching scenarios without programming. Engage and retain learners with multimedia, interactivity, and quizzes. Conveniently host and review collaborative projects, and easily track results by leveraging Acrobat.com. Enable learner collaboration using the new Twitter widget from Adobe. Deliver content to the web, desktops, mobile devices, and leading Learning Management Systems.

Version 5 offers exciting new features for authoring professional content including an opti­mized user interface with Property inspector, multiple document interface, personalized work­spaces, rich animation effects, multi-video support and synchronization, quick project-wide formatting using Object Styles and Master Slides, and an expanded asset library, plus major performance improvements and support for Apple Mac OS.

Top 13 reasons to upgrade to Adobe Captivate 5

• Rapid content development – Rapidly author professional eLearning content, including software demonstrations, application simulations, branching scenarios, and robust quizzes, without programming thanks to template-based authoring, application recording, widgets, and the repurposing of existing content.
• Optimized user interface – Get going faster, do the job in fewer steps, and improve the overall authoring experience with Property inspector, multiple document interface and personalized workspaces.
• Rich animation effects – Create rich object animations within Captivate 5, by combining predefined effects like straight-line motion, rotation, and glow. For added impact, seam­lessly import custom animation effects from Adobe Flash® Professional.
• Object Styles – Define styles and apply them to selected objects for quick and consistent formatting across a project.
• Master Slides – Use Master Slides to easily create and maintain well-formatted and consistent-looking content that meets corporate guidelines.
• Multi-video support and synchronization – Import video in a wide variety of formats (AVI, MOV, FLV, MPEG) and synchronize it with the project, slide, or set of slides.
• Roundtrip PowerPoint workflow – Leverage existing Microsoft PowerPoint slides in your projects. Import slides with audio and interactivity, easily update the content, and keep your PowerPoint and Adobe Captivate files in sync with the dynamically linked import option.
• Hosting and collaboration via Acrobat.com – Host published or in-progress eLearning projects on Acrobat.com and share them with learners and reviewers, who can access them from virtually anywhere.
• In-context learner collaboration using Twitter – Leverage the Twitter widget from Adobe to create courses that let learners collaborate with one another as well as the author by just logging into their Twitter account. They can ask questions, get answers, and access preexisting discussions.
• Tracking and reporting – Satisfy basic evaluation needs at no extra cost by tracking and reporting key performance metrics, like average score and pass or fail, without having to invest in a Learning Management System.
• Integration with SCORM- and AICC-compliant Learning Management Systems – Publish your eLearning content to Acrobat® Connect™ Pro, other eLearning applications, and leading SCORM- and AICC-compliant Learning Management Systems.
• Community Help – Access a large repository of Help content, generated by Adobe and the user community at large, using an Adobe AIR® application.
• Expanded asset library – Get a larger set of prebuilt widgets, playbars, skins, stock anima­tions, images, text captions, and buttons with superior aesthetics and usability.

Captivate 5 Anchors the New Adobe eLearning Suite 2

Adobe eLearning Suite 2 is the complete integrated toolbox for efficiently creating profession­al eLearning content end-to-end, and easily maintaining it without programming. Accelerate development with the smarter aggregation capabilities and optimized user interface of Captivate 5, easy new roundtripping between authoring and asset creation tools, application capture in Flash Professional CS5, and an enhanced set of out-of-the-box toolbars, widgets, and buttons. Add interest and impact using value-added functionalities like domain-specific HTML templates. Leverage Acrobat.com to improve collaboration, and easily track results.

Adobe eLearning Suite 2 combines:

Video: Captivate 5 Top New Feature Tour

See Also

Learn more or download a free trial.

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“Adobe MAX is an experience unlike any other — an opportunity to learn from the experts and connect with thousands of the most influential designers, developers, and decision-makers in our industry.”

If you’d like to go to Adobe MAX this year in L.A. (October 23–27) and save $400 in the process, just purchase (full or upgrade) any one of the products listed below from the Adobe online store and you’ll receive a special promo code that will discount your regular full confer­ence pass price by US$400…

But since the upgrade price for many of these products is less than $400, basically you’re getting the software for more than free!

Just enter the promotion code found in your purchase confirmation at the start of the MAX 2010 online registration process to receive your savings. The deal is valid in North America with one coupon per person and not combinable with any other offer or discount.

To receive the $400 price reduction, you must purchase one of the following eligible products by October 18, 2010:

See full details and offer terms, and see you in L.A.!

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If you haven’t upgraded to Creative Suite 5, you’re missing out on new ways to reach customers, differentiate your brand, and save your company time and money in the process. Here are five good reasons to upgrade to CS5:

Productivity

CS5 brings quantifiable efficiency to users (see just-released benchmarks) through its optimi­zation for the latest hardware and operating systems and its focus on reducing common prod­uction tasks from days to hours and from hours to a few mouse clicks. For example, CS5 users can work up to 10X faster with large Photoshop images, get jaw-dropping video-editing speed, and perform numerous work­flow-specific production tasks in a fraction of the time.

Differentiation

CS5 introduces rich new creativity features for print, web, interactive, mobile, and video professionals to produce compelling content and stories that make brands stand out in a crowded marketplace. For example, companies can incorporate cutting-edge 3D objects and motion graphics into their creative thanks to new Repoussé technology in Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended.

Reach

CS5 helps you capitalize on the pervasiveness of the Flash platform and the latest digital publishing trends to better reach, retain, and deliver value to customers wherever they are. For example, CS5 enables you to prepare content for the latest mobile devices such as the Apple iPad, Google Android, RIM Blackberry, Amazon Kindle, Sony eBook Reader, and Barnes & Noble nook.

Optimization

CS5 introduces integration with Omniture web analytics for closely tracking ROI and fine-tun­ing the spend in an enterprise digital strategy. Current Omniture customer can adopt CS5 to streamline and control costs in A/B testing and allow designers and developers to instrument Flash content directly within their creative workflows without manual tagging. And long-term CS users can add Omniture analytics to an effective digital strategy (requires separate investment in Omniture tools as well as in CS5).

Innovative Industry Leadership

Only Adobe CS5 offers comprehensive, industry-leading tools for print, web, interactive, mo­bile, video, and application development – all of the touchpoints in an effective digital strategy. The tight integration among these tools enables teams to share assets and collaborate more effectively across disciplines. Adobe CS5 continues Adobe’s long history of innovative solutions that address pressing business needs.

For over a dozen more reasons to upgrade, see this page.

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Adobe recognizes that many people use both Lightroom and Photoshop, and so is offering a special deal whereby you can save 30% off Lightroom 3 if you purchase it together with Photoshop CS5 in any form. This means if you buy Photoshop CS5, Photoshop CS5 Extended, or any CS5 suite edition (which all contain Photoshop), you’ll get 30% off Lightroom when you buy them at the same time.

And it works for either buying the full version or upgrading from an older version, for either product… So if you are upgrading Photoshop, but buying Lightroom for the first time, you’ll get 30% off the price of the full version of Lightroom (e.g., off of $299/€249/£198). No promotion code is required to activate the discount, and it is valid worldwide for all Adobe Commercial store customers (Education and Volume purchases are not eligible).

Lightroom with Photoshop – Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop?

Lightroom is an end-to-end photography solution designed expressly for digital photograph­ers, helping them work faster and more efficiently with one image, an entire shoot, or a large image library. Photoshop is the industry standard in digital image editing, with advanced tools used by photographers, graphic designers, and other professionals for detailed, pixel-level editing and compositing.

Why should I use Lightroom if I already have Photoshop, or vice versa?

Lightroom is designed to boost your efficiency by handling the essential tasks a digital photo­grapher faces in one intuitive environment. And it includes the widest range of advanced tools for efficiently processing entire shoots, managing photo libraries, and showcasing images. When you need it, tight integration between Lightroom and Photoshop lets you easily take advantage of the power of Photoshop for more complete creative control, high dynamic range photos, and panoramas, all with pixel-level accuracy and precision.

Is Lightroom included in Adobe Creative Suite?

No. On the whole, Lightroom and Adobe Creative Suite address different audiences. Creative Suite is primarily focused on design and the delivery of rich creative experiences while Light­room addresses the needs of advanced amateur and professional photographers.

What is Adobe Bridge, and what is the difference between Bridge and Lightroom?

Adobe Bridge is a file browser and file management application that is included with Photoshop CS2 or higher and Adobe Creative Suite. Bridge is designed to work with a wide variety of graphics, image, and video file types to manage files in varied workflows involving all the applications in Creative Suite. Lightroom and its file management functions are tailored specif­ically for the digital photography workflow. Lightroom unites your key photography essentials, including image editing, in one intuitive application. Lightroom uses file importing and a data­base structure that speeds up searches and enables Lightroom to store information about as well as display images on offline media. Bridge cannot display offline images.

To learn more, see the Complete Photoshop Family page.

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Happy second birthday Acrobat 9!

Yes, it’s true – two years ago today Adobe officially released Acrobat 9:

Adobe Acrobat 9 Software Now Available

New Version Receives Accolades for PDF Portfolios, Real-time Capabilities and Support for Adobe Flash Technology

SAN JOSE, Calif. — June 25, 2008 — Adobe Systems today announced the immediate availability of Adobe® Acrobat® 9 software, a significant upgrade that transforms the process of creating and sharing electronic documents… [continues]

So considering Adobe usually runs on two-year product release schedules, give or take, what does this imply for when Acrobat 10 will be coming out?

In early May, we reported here that “Acrobat 10 is going to launch in the second half of this year” – but now we have more precise information…

On Tuesday, Adobe’s top dog gave a presentation and Q&A to financial analysts in which he talked about CS5, Acrobat, and business in general. He said some great things, and here are the highlights for when Acrobat 10 will be available and its new features:

Shantanu Narayen – President and CEO, Adobe Systems:

In our Acrobat business, the strength we experienced in the fourth and first quarters continued through the second quarter. Enterprise licensing was particularly strong, demonstrating the Acrobat and PDF value proposition continues to resonate with large customers. We are on track to deliver a new version of Acrobat late in our fourth quarter that will focus on enabling knowledge workers and enterprises to collaborate across critical document workflows. [Ed. note – Adobe's fiscal fourth quarter ends in late November 2010.]

Michael Olson – Piper Jaffray:

Just one quick question, with Acrobat 10 coming in Q4, people may wonder what kind of additions can you make to a product like Acrobat – and I realize you may not want to give away specific new features, but can you just talk about in general what kind of things you can do with products like Acrobat to improve the new version?

Shantanu Narayen:

Mike, what we are seeing is a lot of Acrobat usage right now within enterprises to do what we call critical document workflows. The integration of Acrobat and acrobat.com is ripe area of innovation and opportunity for us to continue to deliver value to custom­ers. Delivery of PDF files across mobile devices is becoming an increasing use case for us. So, multiple innovations are on the drawing board and we are excited about the new version that as we said will come out later this year.

So there you have it – from what the CEO says, it looks like Acrobat 10 (or Acrobat X) will be shipping sometime between mid-October to late-November this year. If you’d like to give feed­back for what you’d like to see in the new version, please feel free to share your thoughts at the Acrobat Feature Request forum. Or, you can enter a comment below…

In the meantime, join the free online Acrobat Webinar Series where Adobe experts share tips, tricks, and insights into Acrobat, plus answer questions – the most recent session is this afternoon at 1pm Eastern time, and available on-demand thereafter.

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Adobe announced their second quarter financial results yesterday and during the accompany­ing conference call, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen spoke about their Flash technology and how it’s doing given the recent contro­versy with Apple. The call transcript quotes Narayen as saying:

Enabling our customers to deliver engaging experiences across multiple devices remains a focus of the company. Today we announced availability of Flash Player 10.1 for mobile devices, which delivers on the promise of enabling access to the full web across desktops and devices. We expect millions of devices to ship with 10.1 in the second half of 2010.

Flash is strategic for Adobe because it delivers great value to our customers. Approxi­mately 3.5 million Flash designers and developers are working with Flash-based solutions today, and their ranks grew by 59 percent in 2009. The new release of Flash Player creates a whole new sandbox for these millions of designers and developers to create next-generation content, advertising, games, applications and experiences.

We’ve already seen that those who have been using the new Flash Player on Android phones love it; and as devices start to ship with Flash during the rest of the year, those that don’t have Flash on their smartphones will wish they did.

During the subsequent Q&A session with analysts, the question came in, “are you seeing any impact on the Creative Suite business relative to the Flash and HTML5 debate?” Last month we reported here there would be “no impact,” and yesterday the CEO confirmed:

No, we really have not seen any impact on our Flash authoring business. What we are finding frankly is that we’re seeing more and more fragmented workflows as people have to author to different standards. And the demand actually on our authoring side, to be able to deal with all these disparate workflows is actually causing more attention being paid to the Creative Suite 5 features.

In fact, for CS5 products containing Flash authoring and output, we have a 22% increase in revenue over CS4 to date. And I think you’ll see probably another ten tablet-style devices that come out with different resolutions between now and holiday season, which will increase the demand for that capability within our products.

And we’ve said this multiple times, both Flash and HTML are really going to be the solution for the web. Both of them have benefits. And Adobe has had a long history of supporting both existing formats; and when the formats don’t exist, of inventing appropriate technology to enable people to deliver the kind of experience they want.

But if you think about sporting events that are happening or when you think about television, all of that’s also being streamed on the internet and frankly all of that’s in Flash. So for those who have been watching the soccer or golf, virtually all of that content is in Flash.

The press reviews of the new Flash Player 10.1 on mobile devices have been good and the demos impressive, and it’s the #1 free download on Android. At today’s Droid X launch in New York (see video interview below with Adobe, Google, Verizon, and Motorola), Google’s mobile VP Andy Rubin shared that 160,000 Android phones are now activated each day, up from a prior estimate of 100,000/day just last month. As more and more Android devices come to market, along with planned support for Flash Player on RIM’s Blackberry devices, Nokia’s Symbian and MeeGo devices, Palm’s WebOS devices, and future versions of Windows Phone, Flash’s future looks bright.

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We have a new voucher to save $10/€10/£10 on Acrobat Pro or Acrobat Pro Extended (full or upgrades) with coupon code: prodesigntools. Just enter this promotion code after adding the product to your shopping cart at the Adobe Store for the discount to activate.

This special offer is available in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia/NZ, and throughout Western Europe – save $10 in the US and Canada; save €10 in France, Germany, Ireland, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Austria, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Finland; save £10 in the UK; save A$10 in Australia; save CHF 10 in Switzerland; save DKK 100 in Denmark; save NOK 100 in Norway; and save SEK 100 in Sweden.

This promo code is valid until July 21, 2010, in Adobe Commercial stores only (not Education or Volume).

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If you’re weighing whether to upgrade to Photoshop CS5, or just want to see the best of the new features, Adobe’s got a free new seminar series for you… Digital Imaging Evangelist Julieanne Kost just gave a one-hour online session (now available on-demand) highlighting at least 10 good reasons to become a Photoshop CS5 believer:

Top Ten Reasons to Upgrade to Photoshop CS5 — Watch now

Photoshop CS5 is packed with features that save time, and helps you create images with the desired impact. Easily make complex selections. Remove any image element and see the space fill in almost magically. Paint realistically. Create stunning HDR images, remove noise, add grain, and create vignettes with state-of-the-art photo­graphy tools. Seeing is believing.

This is the second in the What’s New in Photoshop CS5 eSeminar Series. The first was given last month by Photoshop Product Manager Bryan O’Neil Hughes of Content-Aware Fill fame, and is also available for on-demand replay:

Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers (1 hour) — Watch now

See how Photoshop CS5 gives photographers a set of breakthrough tools to help you refine your images and get superior results faster than ever before. This seminar highlights key features and the reasons why photographers should consider upgrad­ing to Photoshop CS5.

On top of that, it’s a busy week for Photoshop users. If you’re in the New York City area in the coming days, stop by one of these other free events:

Adobe Photoshop CS5 Summit, Friday, June 25, 4:30–7:30 pm, Hammerstein Ballroom, NYC —
Join Scott Kelby and the NAPP team for the first-ever Photoshop Summit, where you’ll see exactly how to plug the amazing new features of CS5 right into your daily Photoshop work­flow. Plus, you’ll be able to meet one-on-one with Adobe’s own Photoshop and Lightroom product managers and get your questions answered direct from the source. It’s absolutely free with some great giveaways including the products themselves.

Photowalk with Adobe Product Managers, Saturday, June 26, 10am-2pm, Midtown, NYC —
Join Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop product managers Tom Hogarty and Bryan O’Neil Hughes for an exclusive photo walk through New York City. All levels welcome, and includes a free lunch and software tips and demos. Space is limited to 50 participants, so please RSVP.

Adobe Day at Foto Care, Monday & Tuesday, June 28 & 29, 10am & 2pm, Foto Care, NYC —
Welcome Adobe specialists Bryan O’Neil Hughes and Tom Hogarty as they present Photoshop CS5 and Lightroom 3. In these free workshops you will learn the new features and see how to use the new tools to enhance your workflow, making it easier and faster.

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