I recently presented at the Prepare to Win event in Phoenix on creating the perfect pdf, as well as cross media.  Preparing a PDF for print can be a tough task. With so many options and potential unknowns it’s nice to know that Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro takes a lot of the guessing out of creating a PDF.  The below video tutorials are the ones I’ve found most helpful when troubleshooting PDFs and has helped […]

Last weekend I recorded my latest Lynda.com title “Creating Your First Website in Dreamweaver CS4”.  It is a really good title since it’s a “soup to nuts” title teaching you everything you need to know about creating your first website in Dreamweaver. Here’s the offiical description: Creating a First Web Site with Dreamweaver CS4 does just that – teaches the basics of building a first web site. Adobe Certified Instructor Paul Trani walks through the […]

Check out the new version of Adobe TV!!  http://tv.adobe.com It was architected and designed based on substantial input from users and is the first website in the world to deploy a video player built with the Adobe Open Source Media Framework (aka Strobe), and one of the first sites built using Adobe ColdFusion 9. The site has a brand-new look & feel, and many new features including: User-customizable homepage Vastly improved navigation & search Save […]

I’ll be at the AIGA Salt Lake City meeting on September 24th where I will be speaking about the new features of Flash CS4 Professional! The features I will cover include: New motion tween for quick, easy animation creation Prebuilt Motion Presets Bone tool for quick character animation Fundamentals of ActionScript Attendees will also learn how to create Flash content using other programs such as InDesign and Photoshop!  Come if you’re in the area!

I occasionally get asked about what size you should design a website at.  This question has an inherent issue because of the following: The array of monitor resolutions The fact that web pages can be scaleable http://webstyleguide.com/page/dimensions.html

Valuable Adobe links that don’t cost a thing: http://blogs.adobe.com http://labs.adobe.com http://www.adobe.com/events http://del.icio.us/adobe http://www.adobe.com/training http://www.adobe.com/designcenter http://www.adobe.com/support http://www.adobeforums.com

As if Photoshop wasn’t robust enough, it also gives you the ability to load it up even more with creative assets known as presets. Presets are custom settings for specific tools that ultimately allow for more creativity. There are presets for many different tools such as brushes, shapes, patterns, gradients, swatches, layer styles, and even contours for adjustment layers. There are two ways to make presets. Either create them in Photoshop, or download all the […]

Research shows that every unnecessary click has the ability to slow down users’ productivity.  And with CS4 these clicks have been dramatically reduced, thus speeding up productivity.  The independent study was conducted by Pfeiffer Consulting, who did more than 100 benchmark tests with the following key highlights: InDesign CS4 – Production level errors can be identified and fixed twice as fast with Live Preflight. InDesign CS4 - Creation and alignment of a new object takes half […]

Intersted in learning all you need to know about Flash to create your own dynamic content – in on day?  Join me this summer in a city near you to learn all you need to know to be dangerous.  And the great thing is, no former knowledge is required!  Now it would help if you’re familiar with other Adobe programs such as Photoshop or InDesign, but if you’re a graphic designer, photographer, or someone totally […]