Adobe Software

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Lesson Overview

Founded in the 1980s, Adobe makes the world’s most popular design tools, which are staples for your web design agency.

In this lesson, we’ll learn the Adobe Software used for:

1. Photo Editing
   • Photoshop
   • Lightroom
   • Illustrator
2. Website Design
   • Dreamweaver
3. Video Production
   • Premiere Pro
   • After Effects

View Adobe Creative Cloud Plans

Lesson Transcription

Welcome! I’m Leighton, your webmaster. Today, let’s look at the fabulous software created by Adobe.

So where do you go to edit images? Or process them from your digital camera?  What software did I use to create this video? To edit code on our websites? All of that can be accomplished with software created by Adobe, which was founded in the 1980s. Their software is the gold standard and I’ve been using it since I started out in design. Let’s look at what’s offered by Adobe, specifically for Photo Editing, Web Design and Video Production.

• Photo Editing: First off, Adobe Photoshop, the most popular photo editing software in the world. With Photoshop, you can manipulate, transform and edit photos. Create banners, resize & crop images, remove unwanted elements from a photo, blur, sharpen, blend, combine, add brush strokes, circles, polygons, and so much more. Photoshop can do just about anything you want with a photo. The possibilities are truly endless. Photoshop’s sister software is Adobe Lightroom, another staple of the photo editing world. While Photoshop focuses on image creation and manipulation, Lightroom is best for batch image editing, which means editing and organizing a bunch of photos at once. The edits you do in Lightroom are mostly brightness, contrast, shadows, highlights, color, saturation, white balance, etc. Photos straight off a camera should go through Lightroom for a few minutes before being released to the public. And, nowadays, you can keep your Lightroom photos and albums in sync across your phone, tablet and computers. This cloud synchronization is a wonderful way to edit anytime, anywhere. Finally, if Photoshop is for images, Lightroom for photographs, then Adobe Illustrator is for graphics. So logos, vectors, brochures, printed material, business cards, typography, would all be handled on Illustrator. Illustrator uses vectors instead of pixels, which means you can resize your graphics however you’d like. Illustrator really shines when working with printed graphics. Let’s look at these 3 products. (DEMONSTRATE adobe.com Photoshop, Lightroom and Illustrator)
• Web Design: So what does Adobe offer for website design? Dreamweaver! This was created as a website design tool, but I mostly use it to edit code for my projects. I don’t feel like the design aspect of Dreamweaver is the best option, especially since we’re using WordPress for design, but the code editing tools in Dreamweaver can really save you time. Dreamweaver knows code and knows the files on your computer, so when you start typing, it can autofill the rest of the code or the file you’re trying to link. Let’s look at Dreamweaver. (DEMONSTRATE adobe.com > Dreamweaver)
• Video Production: At the outset of this lesson, I asked you what software I used to create this teaching video? Adobe Premiere Pro! This is a production-level tool that even movie studios use to create films. You can import clips, trim, edit, change the color, manipulate audio, add titles and captions, transitions, effects and so much more. For cinematic visual effects and motion graphics, there’s the sister product Adobe After Effects, which is designed to complement Premiere Pro. With motion graphics, you can animate and manipulate just about anything. Let’s take a look at these 2 programs. (DEMONSTRATE PREMIERE PRO and AFTER EFFECTS)

Let’s RECAP what software we’ve just discussed:

1. Photoshop — Create and manipulate images.
2. Lightroom — Edit and organize photographs.
3. Illustrator — Edit vector graphics and illustrations.
4. Dreamweaver — Organize & edit website code.
5. Premiere Pro — Video production.
6. After Effects — Motion graphics and animations.    

I’m in and out of these programs every day, and a successful website design business relies on them.

I’m Leighton, and now you know… Adobe!

Lesson Homework

When you’re ready, purchase Adobe Creative Cloud. Adobe software is the gold standard for design, so the sooner you get comfortable with this software, the better.