Sessions

The Best of InDesign Secrets


David Blatner



Anne-Marie Concepción

ARCHIVE: This session was presented at CreativePro Week 2020.

The Best of InDesign Secrets

Wednesday, 9:00 am – 10:00 am Central

Anne-Marie and David have spent over a decade publishing tips and tutorials about our favorite page-layout app: 2,000+ blog posts, 280+ podcasts, hundreds of magazine articles… Watch as they battle to find the best of InDesign Secrets.

Topics include:

  • Little-used InDesign features that you really should be using
  • Obscure tricks that could literally change your life (or at least your workflow)
  • Keyboard and other shortcuts for improving your productivity
  • Using common features together in uncommon ways for maximum benefit

Charts and Graphs


Jason Hoppe

ARCHIVE: This session was presented at CreativePro Week 2020.

Charts and Graphs

Tuesday, 3:45 pm – 4:30 pm Central

Building charts and graphs is an essential piece of the designer’s toolkit… and yet the tools and resources for building them are not obvious!

In this class, you’ll learn:

  • Create compelling visuals faster and more effectively than you ever thought possible
  • Illustrator’s chart features (the good, bad, and ugly)
  • Data input: manually or imported from a spreadsheet
  • Create radial, pie, line charts, and graphs
  • Plug-ins and scripts for InDesign
  • Do’s and don’ts of chart creation

Essential Image Techniques


Jason Hoppe

ARCHIVE: This session was presented at CreativePro Week 2020.

Essential Image Techniques

Tuesday, 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm Central

How you handle images can make or break your design (and your workflow). Fortunately, there are tons and tons of useful tips and tricks for working with images in InDesign! And in this fun and fast-paced session, we’ll share as many cool image-related tips as humanly possible in the span of 60 minutes.

You’ll see tips for:

  • Placing and sizing
  • Relinking and exporting
  • Enhancing images with custom frames and special transparency effects
  • Making images pop

CSI Illustrator: Solving Mysteries


Laura Coyle

ARCHIVE: This session was presented at CreativePro Week 2020.

CSI Illustrator: Solving Mysteries

Tuesday, 3:45 pm – 4:30 pm Central

Have you ever purchased a piece of vector stock art thinking it would simplify your life, only to discover a virtual crime scene of innumerable misplaced anchor points, strange groupings ,and uneditable text? Or maybe you jump in to change a color in your colleague’s Illustrator file, only to spend an hour you don’t have?

In this session, Laura will demonstrate an organized, time saving method for working in Illustrator.

You’ll learn:

  • How to “investigate” an Illustrator file from top to bottom, find transparency and identify all the components
  • Best practices for editing and creating files to save you from spinning and crashing
  • Plugins that keep order and improve performance
  • Quick color-change methods and organization
  • Creative Cloud Library Tips for collaboration
  • Tips for dealing with problem Illustrator files

Creating Animations for Email and Social Media


Chris Converse

ARCHIVE: This session was presented at CreativePro Week 2020.

Creating Animations for Email and Social Media

Tuesday, 2:15 pm – 3:15 pm Central

In 2019, email marketing outerformed social media, search, news, and corporate intranets combined. The good news is that marketers are looking for attractive, animated content for their marketing campaigns. The bad news is this means animated GIFs and file size restrictions.

Email animations can be very frustrating to create, and their simplicity is deceptive. Creating small, looping animations with limited file size can leave you feeling helpless. Learn techniques that you can use in Photoshop, AfterEffects, PowerPoint, and Keynote to create compelling animations that leverage your work against the limitations of this popular medium.

Topics include:

  • Understanding why these limitations exist, and exploit the weaknesses
  • Learning techniques for creating looping animations
  • Using various animation techniques for email
  • Leveraging content from your existing projects
  • Creating animations from video
  • Optimizing Animated GIF with Photoshop and other tools
  • Exploring 3rd party compression options

Revisiting Photoshop Layers


Nigel French

ARCHIVE: This session was presented at CreativePro Week 2020.

Revisiting Photoshop Layers

Tuesday, 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm Central

Sometimes the most important features are hiding right in plain view. One example is Photoshop’s extraordinary layers feature. If you’re still using layers for simple stacking, you’re not getting the most out of Photoshop!

Learn why the deceptively simple layers feature is actually a goldmine of productivity, flexibility, and power.

Putting it Together: Compositing in Photoshop


Lisa Carney

ARCHIVE: This session was presented at CreativePro Week 2020.

Putting it Together: Compositing in Photoshop

Tuesday, 10:30 am – 11:30 am Central

Composites are more than just merging images together. To make a great composite, one needs to consider light sources, shadows, color, and perspective.

During this in-depth session, you will learn how to conceptualize your design, solve each piece of the puzzle, and combine the many parts using Photoshop.

In this session, you’ll learn:

  • How to use adjustment layers to check the luminance, saturation, and hue of a composite
  • How to make composites come to life by adding ambient color
  • How to use familiar tools in unconventional ways to help you create realistic composites
  • And much more!

Power Tips for Photoshop

Jesus Ramirez

Jesús Ramirez

ARCHIVE: This session was presented at CreativePro Week 2020.

Power Tips for Photoshop

Tuesday, 9:00 am – 10:15 am Central

Join Jesús in this information-packed session where he will share his best Photoshop tips and power shortcuts for designers!

In this session, you will learn timesaving techniques, little-know features, and better ways to work with the tools that you already use. This session will leave you saying, “I wish I knew that years ago!”

In this session, you’ll learn:

  • Time-saving techniques
  • Little-know (hidden) Photoshop features
  • How to make blending modes work for you

Designing PDF Forms in InDesign and Acrobat


Richard Turner-Jones

ARCHIVE: This session was presented at CreativePro Week 2020.

Designing PDF Forms in InDesign and Acrobat

Wednesday, 2:15 pm – 3:15 pm Central

Fillable PDF forms let your readers enter information on desktop and mobile devices, regardless of whether they have an internet connection. In addition, you can capture information from those PDF forms and utilize that information without having to set up a server or other complicated technology.

In this session, you’ll learn how to leverage the capabilities of Adobe InDesign to build PDF forms and then how to refine those forms in Adobe Acrobat. When planning a forms project, it’s helpful to know which program gives you the features that you need to perform the job at hand and how editing can be achieved most easily. You’ll also learn some tips to make the process easier, not found in the native applications!

In this session, you’ll learn:

  • Best practices for adding form fields in InDesign
  • Tricks for adding form fields in Adobe InDesign
  • Tasks you’ll need to perform in Adobe Acrobat
  • Tips & tricks to help you build flexible and robust forms
  • Dealing with changes to forms