Adobe Creative Cloud Design Tools Digital Classroom

by Jennifer Smith

"Adobe ""CRVE SUTE" "7 Design & Web Premium Digital Classroom" is like having your own personal instructor guiding you through each lesson while you work at your own speed. This book includes more than 25 self-paced lessons that let you discover essential skills and explore the new features and capabilities of this popular design and development suite. Each lesson includes step-by-step instructions and lesson files, along with video tutorials that complement the topics covered in each lesson. These accompanying files are provided on the included DVD, developed by the same team of Adobe Certified Instructors and experts who have created many of the official training titles for Adobe Systems. Each tutorial is approximately five minutes long and demonstrates and explains the concepts and features covered in the lesson. This 832 page book and DVD offers a complete training package for designers wanting to learn about the latest features of all the applications included in Adobe CRVE SUTE; including InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash, and Fireworks. Explore integration techniques that can be implemented using Adobe Bridge the file management and collaboration tools found in Design Premium.

Genres: Design

896 pages, ebook

First published August 12, 2013

About the author

I’m Jennifer Smith – a designer, educator, and author. I’ve written more than one dozen books on digital imaging and Web publishing, including the recently published Photoshop CS5 Digital Classroom, Illustrator CS5 Digital Classroom and the Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Premium for Dummies and Wireframing and Prototyping with Expression Blend Sketchflow. I’ve done extensive work for corporations such as Adobe Systems and Microsoft, and last year traveled more than 100,000 miles visiting clients in Europe, Asia, Africa, and all around the United States. I deliver training and consulting for Fortune 100 companies, universities, and many independent software vendors.

I work extensively on designing and creating interactive applications and sites using Expression Blend and other Expression Studio applications. You can find many of my training guides and videos on Microsoft.com. I’m also the co-founder of the American Graphics Institute.

Reviews

[Diane Kistner · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been using Adobe Create Suite 5.5—mainly Illustrator, Photoshop, and Dreamweaver—for about three years now to design book covers and program Kindle editions as a small independent editor/publisher. I am almost entirely self-taught, which means that there is a lot I don't know and even more that I don't know that I don't know. When CS6 came out, I started thinking that maybe I should consider going to Cloud and make a serious effort to expand my skills. I thought this book might help me decide if that's something that would make sense for me to do.

The first thing out of the box I discovered is that the authors expect you to already be signed up for Creative Cloud. I know a lot of people aren't going to do that—I'm certainly not—so this review is aimed at those who have not made the leap to Creative Cloud. (To be honest with you, I can't imagine there will be a lot of difference in the Cloud and the desktop products except in delivery, management of resources [bandwith vs. RAM], and method of payment. "Everything's moving to the Cloud." YMMV.)

Does this book earn its keep if you decide you aren't going to go with Adobe's monthly subscription service? I'd say yes. At least for me it has. The training tutorials have taught me tricks and techniques that I can use just fine with CS5.5. The training videos move along at a rather fast clip, so it's good to watch them more than once. The practice lessons (book-based but also ready-to-roll file-based) afford you plenty of time to do just that, and I found them helpful. The training doesn't cover everything; I'm sure the authors are hoping you will purchase more training online at their website. The taste included in this book will give you a feel for how well the lessons meld with your own learning style.

Importantly, for people like me who have basically knocked around in the Creative Suite, picking up things almost by happenstance, the skills gleaned are worth the price of the book. I have saved that much money just with the first (Adobe Bridge) lesson. And, yes, if you don't have the Creative Suite at all, this can help you decide if you want to shell out for the desktop version or start with the Cloud-based version. I recommend it.