Innovation Center

Photoshop

About Photoshop

Photoshop is a popular commercial graphics editing software. Using Photoshop or similar programs you can:

Touch up photos
Create images for print and web
Make user interface designs
Design video graphics

LinkedIn Learning: Photoshop 2022 Essential Training
Whether you’re an experienced creative professional or just looking to make the most out of your new camera, learning how to use Photoshop 2022 efficiently and effectively is the best investment you can make to get the most out of your pixels. Photoshop is a deep, complex, and at times, intimidating product. In this course, instructor Julieanne Kost filters out the noise and complexity to help you quickly achieve the results you want.

Julieanne walks through the fundamentals of digital imaging—from working with multiple images to customizing the Photoshop interface. She explains how to choose the right tools to crop, tone, and retouch photos, while always maintaining the highest-quality output. She also demonstrates the most efficient ways to perform common tasks, including working with layers, selections, and masking. Along the way, learn the secrets of nondestructive editing using Smart Objects, how to create animated GIFs, and much more.
Adobe Photoshop Classroom in a Book
Adobe Photoshop Classroom in a Book (2023 release) uses real-world, project-based learning to cover the basics and beyond, providing countless tips and techniques to help you become more productive with the program. For beginners and experienced users alike, you can follow the book from start to finish or choose only those lessons that interest you. Learn to:
- Correct and improve digital images
- Seamlessly remove backgrounds, repair images, and replace skies
- Explore advanced filters that use machine learning and cloud processing
- Select subjects with complex outlines, including hair, quickly and precisely
- Composite multiple images and combine with typography
- Edit video, including transitions and motion effects
- Edit camera raw images
- Automate tasks
- Save as a Photoshop cloud document to easily edit across desktop and mobile devices
- Export your work for web, mobile devices, and print

Illustrator

About Illustrator

Illustrator is a popular commercial vector editing software. Below are some examples of projects used to create and edit with illustrator and similar programs:

Artwork and illustrations
Charts
Infographics
Logos
Posters

Vectors are geometric objects, like points, lines, curves, and polygons that are used to build the image. This differs from pixel based images which are made up of blocks of color. Pixel (or raster) images can get distorted if you re-scale them.

However, vectors based images allow you to scale a design to any size without losing quality. The same logo on a business card can be scaled up to the size of a billboard without being distorted. You can see this principal in a word processing program when you increase and decrease the size of your type. The characters always have smooth edges and stay in proportion.

LinkedIn Learning: Illustrator 2022 Essential Training
Adobe Illustrator can be used to accomplish a broad array of design tasks, from the creation of intricate logos to eye-catching billboards. For this reason, this course teaches core concepts and techniques that can be applied to any workflow for print, the web, or assets that will find their way into other applications. Instructor Tony Harmer covers the essentials of Illustrator 2022, including workspaces, layers, shapes and 3D effects. Tony discusses vector graphics—paths, strokes, and fills—and shows how to use the essential drawing tools in Illustrator. He demonstrates how to combine and clean up paths, as well as organize them into groups and layers. Tony also covers text editing, working with color, expressive brush drawing, effects, using Illustrator on the iPad and desktop together, and much more.

InDesign

About InDesign

Adobe InDesign is a desktop publishing and page layout designing software application. It can be used to create works such as posters, flyers, brochures, magazines, newspapers, presentations, books and ebooks

LinkedIn Learning: InDesign 2022 Essential Training
InDesign is an essential tool for design firms, ad agencies, magazines, newspapers, book publishers, and freelance designers around the world. In this course, InDesign expert David Blatner presents a thorough explanation of the core features and techniques that make this powerful page layout application fun and easy to use. He provides a foundation upon which advanced skills and workflows can be built. David shows you how to navigate and customize the workspace, manage documents and pages, work with text frames and graphics, export and print finished documents, explore creating interactive documents, and much more. You can also use the example files and challenges that accompany the course to practice what David explains.

Free Alternatives

Canva
Canva is a free web based graphics editing tool where you can edit images and create flyers, posters, graphics and more. Users must sign up for an account. There is a premium option but a good portion of the content and options are available for free.
GIMP
GIMP is an open-source desktop application alternative Photoshop and is free to use on both Windows and Mac. The interface can be confusing if you don’t have experience with other image editing software but there are plug-ins to make it look similar to Photoshop.
Paint.NET
Paint.NET is a free image editing program with professional level tools. Great for touching-up photos or creating high-quality images print and web. Paint.NET is a desktop application for Windows Computers only.
Pixlr
A free browser based application that includes many advanced features similar to Photoshop.
Inkscape
Inkscape is a free, open-source vector graphics editor you install on your desktop. It's available for Mac, PC and Linux.
Vectr
Vectr is free vector graphics editor that you can access in the cloud or install on your desktop. You can sync your account to multiple devices

Help on the Web

Photoshop Essentials
Tutorials with easy to follow, step-by-step training ranging from basics to photo editing and retouching, photo effects, text effects, and other techniques.
Adobe Photoshop Help
Find links to FAQs, forums, archived help documents, video tutorials and more.
Photoshop Visual Dictionary
Great resource for beginners looking for explanations of basic terms and key tasks