Filed under: Software, Education
Skill up on Adobe products with free video tutorials
It's no secret that the American economy is suffering, and many of us are experiencing the cold-water shock of abrupt career shifts and planned or unexpected part-timer-ification. Want to spark up your value to an employer, or gain some new skills to improve your freelance mojo? Adobe's free video tutorials may be right up your alley.
The library of CS3-centric tutorials is extensive, and covers most of the content that was delivered on DVD with the products. The CS4 section is a little thinner, and most of the demos are performed with the Windows versions of the apps, but the videos are still valuable for new feature info. Adobe's full training site covers paid and e-learning options for all the company's technologies, and of course there are many respected third parties offering training on the CS4 suite.
If you've got a favorite training resource, free or fee, let us know below.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
spike said 6:00PM on 3-09-2009
http://www.videocopilot.net
absolutely awesome after effects training.
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Bernie said 8:51PM on 3-09-2009
Videocopilot.net is my go to place whenever I need to learn a new After Effects technique. The videos are easy to follow and well made.
I even bought some of their DVDs because they are so useful to me whenever I want to make a semi decent looking video.
James W said 6:42PM on 3-09-2009
Michael,
I'm the co-author of Mastering AutoCAD Civil 3D, and while it's a PC-only application, both of the 2010-edition authors run it in VMWare. My company, Engineered Efficiency, is offering free training to recently unemployed Civil Engineers. You can check the link here: http://eng-eff.com/freeTraining
We're really hoping we can help some of our peers find new work by expanding their skill set.
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Maria said 7:01PM on 3-09-2009
I need to mention Lynda.com. (Disclosure: Yes, I do create material for them.) They have a great "all you can eat" (my term) program where you pay one price and can watch as much video as you like. But even if that's more than you want to spend, there are a lot of free videos on the site for non-subscribers. Definitely worth checking out.
http://lynda.com/
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Tom said 9:13PM on 3-09-2009
There is also Woopid for help with Windows/Mac system type stuff, and Office 2007/iWork material (keeping in my business related applications). It's free unlike Lynda etc
http://www.woopid.com/
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Calexifan said 9:20PM on 3-09-2009
Thanks for mentioning lynda.com, Maria. I visited that site a couple of years ago, and was trying to remember the name yesterday. I remembered it was a woman's name, but that was it. Now I know again!
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nickux said 10:24PM on 3-09-2009
"You Suck at Photoshop" is, by far, the superior Photoshop tutorial series.
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hmcnally said 10:40AM on 3-10-2009
"You suck at Photoshop" is one of the funniest things I've seen in the past year and everyone should go watch some episodes right now, but let's face it: it's not a good tutorial series. The best thing in the "suck" training genre remains www.webpagesthatsuck.com.
Virtuous said 5:31AM on 3-10-2009
Abobe products are far too expensive.
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conigs said 8:49AM on 3-11-2009
For casual use, yes.
But for $1700 I (or any other editor/motion designer) can get CS4 Production and easily make that money back in less than a week of work. So for people using the software professionally, no, it's not far too expensive.
bradmoore310 said 8:35AM on 3-10-2009
http://www.kelbytraining.com/online also has tons of great training for Adobe products, as well as photography, for $20/mo or $200/yr. The guy who runs (Scott Kelby) it is the world's best-selling technology author for the past five years and runs Photoshop World, so he knows a thing or two. Many of the instructors are world-renowned experts in their field, including National Geographic/Life/Time/Sports Illustrated/etc. photographer Joe McNally, Photoshop and Illustrator master Bert Monroy, John Paul Caponigro (a friend of Ansel Adams), Terry White, Rich Harrington, Dan Margulis, and many others. I can't think of a better value for the price. Definitely worth checking out!
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ianlive said 9:50AM on 3-10-2009
I own a license of Pixelmator and am partway through reading the user manual. If I am correct, many if the effect and filters are common to Photoshop.
Does anyone know if studying techniques in Photoshop will be translatable to Pixelmator.
Same goes with Freevers' Lineform and Adobe Illustrator
Thanks.
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Terpgod said 12:58PM on 3-11-2009
I do not work or create features for Lynda.com, but I can not recommend them enough. When I went to school, it was exclusively print design and Quark. I have used Lynda to learn so many different programs it is great. Most of the teachers are great, some can be boring and repetitive, but there is tons of content and it broken up nicely so you can jump to exactly what you want.
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