Automation Tips in InDesign: Work Smarter, Not Harder

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InDesign is built to handle repetition, consistency, and flexibility to change—when you know how to let it do the work. In this session, Laurie Ruhlin shares practical ways to use InDesign’s automation-friendly features to speed up common tasks.

You’ll see how familiar tools can be used more strategically, along with a few less-obvious workflows that make everyday documents easier to build, update, and maintain. The focus stays on real design work: faster fixes, smarter setups, and small shifts that add up to major time savings across projects.

You will learn how to:

  • Use Table of Contents in flexible, nontraditional ways that go beyond chapters and page numbers
  • Set up smart document defaults that speed every project from the first page
  • Use Data Merge the “normal” way—and the clever way
  • Add scripts to your workflow, they aren’t as scary as you think!
  • Identify small workflow shifts that save time, improve consistency, and scale across projects

Mastering Masking in Lightroom & Camera Raw

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In modern non-destructive editing workflows, masking is the single most powerful tool for achieving precise, localized control over any image.

This session explores the full masking ecosystem shared between Lightroom Classic/desktop and Adobe Camera Raw (integrated directly in Photoshop), making it highly relevant for production designers who use these tools for final asset refinement, color correction, or creative enhancement.

You’ll discover how to combine AI-generated masks with fine manual control to deliver pixel-perfect selective edits that elevate production quality and creative intent.

By the end of this session, you’ll see why many production professionals now begin nearly every refinement pass in the Masking panel, and how to make masking fast, intuitive, and central to achieving polished, professional-grade results on any type of image.

Key topics include:

  • AI-powered masking tools such as Select Subject, Select Sky, Select People, Select Background, and Landscape Masks
  • Building and refining complex selections
  • A specialized technique for precise edge control, giving you surgical control over edges and blends
  • Proven methods to eliminate common artifacts like unwanted halos and glows that frequently appear in skies
  • Workflow accelerators, including keyboard shortcuts to streamline repetitive production tasks

Practical Use Cases for Firefly Boards

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In this session, Kevin Stohlmeyer introduces Firefly Boards from a practical, real-world perspective, focusing on where they fit in creative corporate workflows. Learn how teams use Firefly Boards to support early creative thinking, align ideas, and collaborate more effectively.

You’ll see how Firefly Boards can help teams explore ideas, respond to feedback, and move concepts forward in a shared visual space. Attendees will have an opportunity to explore together, offering a feel for collaborative workflows without requiring prior experience.

You will learn how to:

  • Understand where Firefly Boards fit within modern creative workflows
  • Explore how teams use Boards for early ideation and concept alignment
  • Recognize different Firefly models and when to use them
  • Compare generation options and outputs across common creative scenarios
  • Evaluate collaborative approaches for exploring, refining, and evolving ideas together

I Didn’t Know Acrobat Could Do That!

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If you think you know everything Acrobat can do, think again. In this session, Bart Van de Wiele reveals how Acrobat can go far beyond viewing and commenting to become a powerful, time-saving part of your everyday workflow.

Learn how to work smarter with PDFs from start to finish. Spend less time fixing files, and more time moving projects forward. Take control of your documents and improve how they’re shared, reviewed, and delivered. Walk away ready to handle everyday PDF challenges with speed and confidence.

Expect plenty of “Wow!” moments—and a fresh perspective on a tool you use every day.

You will learn how to:

  • Optimize and reduce PDF file sizes for sharing and performance
  • Protect and streamline everyday workflows
  • Organize, combine, and restructure documents without source files
  • Secure and redact sensitive information before sharing
  • Discover the power of using artificial intelligence across your PDF documents with Acrobat AI Assistant and Acrobat Studio

Illustrator Power Techniques

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Illustrator offers an enormous number of tools and options—so the challenge is knowing which ones are worth your attention! In this fast-moving, idea-rich session, Laura Coyle shares her carefully chosen set of Illustrator “power moves” that make a noticeable difference in everyday work.

You’ll see tools and techniques you may have skipped past, shortcuts that save real time, and newer Illustrator features that smooth out common pain points. This fun, focused session is designed to spark new ideas, connect familiar features in smarter ways, and remind you just how much Illustrator can do when you know where to look.

You will learn:

  • Ways to speed up your workflow significantly with custom actions
  • Path editing tips and techniques that sharpen your vector skillset
  • Preference settings, shortcuts, and customizations that remove everyday frustrations
  • Which new features of Illustrator 2026 are useful (and which can be skipped)
  • Standout third-party add-ons that expand Illustrator in smart, practical ways

Photoshop and Illustrator: Playing Nice Together

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Photoshop is amazing of course, but Adobe Illustrator does some things much better. To expand our creative toolkit and the range of looks and styles we can achieve, we can combine Photoshop with its close cousin, Illustrator. By understanding the similarities and the differences of these powerhouse programs, we can take advantage of the strengths of both.

In this session we’ll look at why you would want to move your artwork back and forth between Photoshop and Illustrator and the different ways to do so: copying and pasting, embedding and linking, exporting, as well as sharing via Creative Cloud Libraries. In a series of mini projects, we’ll see how to efficiently harness the synergy between the pixels and vectors.

Whether you’re a graphic designer, an illustrator looking to add a more organic feel to your designs, or a photographer looking to combine your images with type, shapes, or patterns, this session has something for you.

Key takeaways:

  • Moving artwork between Photoshop and Illustrator
  • Understanding the properties of pixels and vectors, their strengths and limitations
  • How Illustrator can be used to extend the capabilities of Photoshop (and vice versa)

Step by Step: Building an Animated Brand System

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Designing motion for a brand is rarely a straight line. It’s a collaborative process shaped by creative interpretation, iteration, and feedback. In this session, Chris Converse shares an inside look at how CreativePro’s video bumpers were developed and refined into a cohesive motion brand system using Illustrator and After Effects. This session blends a real-world case study with practical techniques, offering a clear view into the full creative process.

Key takeaways:

  • Translate static brand assets into a flexible motion system
  • Structure Illustrator files for efficient animation in After Effects
  • Make creative decisions that balance brand rules with motion design goals
  • Build a repeatable workflow you can adapt to your own brand projects

Creative Cloud Tips and Tricks to Boost Productivity

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This session is packed with time-saving shortcuts and lesser-known features across Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. You’ll learn practical techniques that experienced Adobe users often overlook, including smarter style setups, hidden panels, and efficient cross-app workflows.

You’ll also see how Creative Cloud Libraries can become a central hub for assets, styles, and consistency across projects—saving time and reducing rework. Every tip is designed to make your day-to-day work faster, smoother, and more intentional.

Key takeaways:

  • Learn essential keyboard shortcuts and hidden tricks that save time every day.
  • Choose the right app for the task
  • Reduce repetitive setup work across projects and documents
  • Become a true Creative Cloud “power user” with techniques most other designers don’t know

Easy Text Clean Up with GREP in Find/Change

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If text cleanup is a regular part of your InDesign work, and you spend much of your day handling long documents, inconsistent copy, or late-stage edits, this session is for you. When text-heavy projects pile up, manual fixes slow everything down and increase the risk of errors.

In this session, Erica Gamet focuses on a pattern-based approach to text cleanup inside InDesign, helping you work with greater control and consistency as documents grow more complex. The emphasis is on efficiency, accuracy, and repeatable workflows that hold up under real production pressure.

You will learn how to:

  • Recognize when pattern-based text cleanup is the right approach for complex documents
  • Clean up inconsistencies introduced by imported Word or Google Docs content
  • Tackle repetitive formatting problems that appear across long or multi-section layouts
  • Handle text corrections that need to be applied consistently across an entire document

Illustrator for InDesign Users: You’ve Got This

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You love InDesign: It makes sense. It behaves! But Illustrator? That’s usually a “hold your breath and click carefully” situation. In this session, Tony Harmer helps InDesign power-users feel far more at home inside Illustrator.

You’ll learn how to navigate Illustrator with confidence, spot the features that save time, and stop treating it like a mysterious side quest you only enter under duress.

You will learn how to:

  • Recognize when Illustrator is the better tool before things get messy in InDesign
  • Navigate Illustrator using concepts that already make sense to you
  • Prepare and clean up vector artwork so it behaves predictably in layouts
  • Export individual vector assets quickly and efficiently for real-world use
  • Shift your mindset from “I’ll get through this,” to “I get to do this!”