They may not be as snazzy as Adobe’s Photoshop CS5, but here’s our list of free photo-editing software that make great substitutes to Photoshop if you’re not yet ready to splash out. They can also be a great choice for those who photograph or blog on the go and need a quick and easy way to edit images.
Adobe CS5 is due out at any moment, with mid-May the expected release date – find out what’s new in Photoshop CS5and what’s new in Flash CS5. But there’s one big change on the cards for web designers: Adobe is no longer offering their popular and accessible Web Standard suite, although Design Standard will still be available. New HTML5 Training courses now available.
“Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium” is up and coming, ready to pre-order by tomorrow – but it’s no more for Web Standard Suite… You won’t find much information about this on Adobe’s website and they would justify their change as a similar suite is still available. But will people pay more? If not the established web design combo of Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Flash could be about to change (compare the Adobe Suites here or see Wikipedia on Adobe Creative Suites).
If you’re buying Adobe Web Premium new instead of upgrading from your current version, expect to pay a whopping £1679.08 inc VAT in the UK. Of course Adobe Web Premium will include Flash Catalyst, Illustrator and Photoshop Extended, but will the bigger price tag put off new users? For starters, many HTML/CSS web designers don’t wish to dabble in Flash. What’s more, Adobe risk putting off new users who wonder how to fit these tools into the picture when Fireworks already does the job with web graphics.
UPDATED: Adobe Photoshop CS5 has now been released (see Adobe’s website to order Photoshop CS5).
So whats new in Photoshop CS5?
Structural image editing -this looks like fun to me, I’m not sure how accurate it will be but look at the video below and see what will be possible. I just love the way you can select an object and it disappears. Just like magic.
E-Learning packages are now an important part of the training and development strategies of many organisations. Whilst face-to-face, classroom based training can be the most effective way to learn in many circumstances, E-Learning is often the preferred method of delivery where a course needs to be deliered to a lot of people, or the whole organisation – for example an induction programme, or technical training.
Having a bespoke e-learning package developed for your organisation can be costly. However, Adobe Captivate provides an excellent, user friendly platform for developing e-learning in-house. Our new 2-day Adobe Captivate training course can be arranged on a private basis on dates to suit. We can also tailor course content and even get some real-project work undertaken during the training.
Whether you’re producing a basic slide-based e-learning product or a step by step IT e-learning package with screen capture, Adobe Captivate and our 2-day Captivate training course will help you to produce a professional product in-house.
The step-by-step guide is designed so that you can follow it in its entirety, or you can dip in to the most relevant sections to brush up on anything you’re having problems with. Just use the drop-down menus in the side-bar navigation. Happy Dreamweaving!
For a really comprehensive guide to building professional websites with Dreamweaver CS4, we also offfer a great range of hands-on instructor led training courses, including Dreamweaver Training in Brighton, Sussex (2-days) and Advanced Dreamweaver (1-day). For a great introduction to Web Design using Adobe’s industry standard tools, there’s still no better place to start than our Web Design Week training package.
If you’re producing newsletters, brochures or other printed media for your clients and are frequently outsourcing design work to creative agencies, you could save a fortune by investing in Adobe Design Training for your staff so that they can carry out some or all of the work in-house.
If you compare the cost of regularly commissioning a creative agency to produce a newsletter or brochure, compared with the one-off cost of training a member of staff in InDesign, Photoshop Lightroom or Illustrator to produce it, the savings are considerable…
A design agency will charge anything from £500 to several thousand pounds per job, whereas a place on one of our public Photoshop, InDesign or Illustrator courses is just £445 + vat (or sometimes less if you take advantage of our last-minute offers). If you’re producing a monthly document you will be seeing a return on your training investment immediately, and the long-term savings will be considerable.
In addition to our public courses, we can also arrange bespoke training on dates to suit you, with content tailored around your requirements. On a bespoke course we can use your own documents as live examples, so you can leave the course with a template for your document completed, as well as the skills you need moving forward.
Private training starts from as little as £450 + vat for a 1-day one to one course. To discuss your requirements in more detail, call 01273 622272 or e-mail Alistair Wylie at alistair@siliconbeachtraining.co.uk
Photo editing software you can download for free
If you’re producing newsletters, brochures or other printed media for your clients and are frequently outsourcing design work to creative agencies, you could save a fortune by investing in 
