Creative Suite Masterclasses Training Courses

About this course

If you've completed our 2 day InDesign course or if you've been using the application for a while then you'll this one-day workshop will help clarify areas of difficulty such as pre-press challenges, colour management, exporting, interactive elements, mail merge facilities, scripting and more.

The course is designed to assist both new-comers and those with more experience who have been confounded by inconsistent colour, poor print quality and unpredictable results. It is also for those seeking a greater understanding of typography, colour, PDF and the graphic arts workflow in a commercial environment.

What you will learn

InDesign is complex program and there is much to learn. Our two-day course is a great introduction to the application but stops short of a detailed understanding of InDesign's powerful production tools and interactive features. This course picks up where the other finishes, providing more in-depth knowledge of key production areas such as pre-flighting and and separations, as well as a practical overview of the program's interactive features such as data merge, hyperlinked tables of contents, bookmarks, embedded movie files and document security.

The course will begin with a revision of document export and printing features (including the relative merits of each) before moving on to specific areas which often cause problems such as using the Output Preview features, creating consistent colour, understanding colour management techniques, transparency flattening, the ink manager and the PDF workflow.

We'll also look at advanced use of swatches (such as mixed ink groups), creating tables of contents, importing and editing tables and tabular data, placing movies and creating control buttons, clipping paths, the find/replace dialogue and much more.

Like all of our masterclasses, the course has a structure and outline but additional topics may be covered and others omitted at the discretion of the tutor and the class. Time will also be made to address any specific problems you may be having but please understand that not all problems can be solved in the classroom environment where time is limited and the needs of others are to be considered.

Pre-press Controls

• Output preview controls
• Separations Preview
• Ink Limit controls
• Transparency flattening
• Colour settings
• Color Management Policies
• Trapping
• Using the Ink Manager

Press-Ready PDF

• Printing to Adobe PDF
• Understanding PostScript
• Compression and resolution
• Creating printer marks
• Colour management policies

Variable Data Features

• Understanding variables
• Defining text variables
• Converting variables to text
• Automation and merging
• Creating a merged document

Working with XML

• Understanding XML
• Showing structure
• Showing tag markers
• Creating tagged frames
• Importing XML data

Here's what you get on a Fearless course

Course Materials

We typically supply detailed course notes or a reference text or in some cases both. Either way, we try to provide sufficient supporting material so that you can return to your work place with sufficient confidence to permit further learning.

Catering

We like to look after our customers with:

• Quality catering from local cafes
• Fresh fruit
• Filter coffee and good biscuits
• Table sweets
• Chilled water

We also accommodate special dietary requirements such as vegetarian, gluten intolerance etc.

Support

There's nothing worse than leaving a course and feeling left on your own. We like to ensure our customers have all the support and backup they need including:

• 90 days unlimited support by phone, email or instant messaging
• On-going support through our Fearless Flyer program (for an extra fee)
• A free re-sit of this course on any scheduled date in the future

You also get

• A certificate of completion
• A CD-ROM with worked examples (for most courses)

Please select your location from the list below. A PDF brochure with the course description, price and other details will appear in your browser. Alternatively, right-click on the desired link and choose "Save file (or target) as..." and save the file to your local system. Adobe (Acrobat) reader is required.

View PDF Brochure for

• Adelaide
• Brisbane
• Canberra
• Hobart
• Melbourne
• Sydney

About this course

If you've undertaken our two-day Photoshop Essentials course or you've been using the program for a while, you'll find this course takes your work to the next level. In this masterclass we focus on digital photography and digital image enhancement using advanced curve and level filters, adjustment layers, masking, alpha channels, colour correction and much more.

What you will learn

Photoshop is a deep program, rich in features and containing a vast range of filters and menu items. This course will concentrate on those features of the application which are used to correct and enhance photographs and digital images. We'll begin with a review of essential imaging adjustments such as Levels, Curves and Shadow/Highlight filters, examining some advanced approaches to those filters that are often overlooked. We'll then move onto a thorough examination of adjustment layers, looking at non-destructive approaches to editing using layers and Smart Filters. The course will then examine masking techniques and alpha channels before a detailed discussion of blend modes and how these can be used to create greater depth and colour control in digital photographs. Time will also be spent on understanding 16 bit colour mode, the RAW camera filter, and the use of Adobe Bridge to edit and examine EXIF and IPTC data and how these features can be used in a commercial workflow. Where possible, time will be made available to discuss any specific problems you may be having with your own work.

Merging to High Dynamic Range

• Understanding High Dynamic Range (HDR)
• Shooing for HDR
• Preparing for HDR
• Creating and HDR image

Advanced Image Correction

• Correcting red-eye
• Removing blemishes and marks
• Correcting lens aberrations
• Correcting distortions
• Fading back...

Producing and Prining Consistent Colour

• Understanding colour profiles
• Applying colour profiles
• Converting to a colour profile
• Soft-proofing with profiles
• Synchronising colour settings

Colour Management Essentials

• Understanding colour management
• Creating a colour-managed workflow
• Profiling your monitor
• Profiling your digital printer
• Getting consistent colour

Improving Your Workflow

• Essential keyboard shortcuts
• Customising menus and shortcuts
• Working with tool presets
• Using preview modes
• Integrating with other Adobe applications

Optimising Images for the Web

• Brief introduction to Photoshop
• Imaging essentials
• Level and hue adjustments
• Saving for the web
• Comparing file size and types
• Slicing images

Here's what you get on a Fearless course

Course Materials

We typically supply detailed course notes or a reference text or in some cases both. Either way, we try to provide sufficient supporting material so that you can return to your work place with sufficient confidence to permit further learning.

Catering

We like to look after our customers with:

• Quality catering from local cafes
• Fresh fruit
• Filter coffee and good biscuits
• Table sweets
• Chilled water

We also accommodate special dietary requirements such as vegetarian, gluten intolerance etc.

Support

There's nothing worse than leaving a course and feeling left on your own. We like to ensure our customers have all the support and backup they need including:

• 90 days unlimited support by phone, email or instant messaging
• On-going support through our Fearless Flyer program (for an extra fee)
• A free re-sit of this course on any scheduled date in the future

You also get

• A certificate of completion
• A CD-ROM with worked examples (for most courses)

Please select your location from the list below. A PDF brochure with the course description, price and other details will appear in your browser. Alternatively, right-click on the desired link and choose "Save file (or target) as..." and save the file to your local system. Adobe (Acrobat) reader is required.

View PDF Brochure for

• Adelaide
• Brisbane
• Canberra
• Hobart
• Melbourne
• Sydney

About this course

If you're working in fashion, textiles or fabric design, you'll find this course a brilliant introduction to the power of Illustrator to realise fabric design concepts. It is designed for those with some exposure to the program but may be adapted for beginners if delivered on-demand.

What you will learn

This course will concentrate on those features of Illustrator which lend themselves to fabric and textile design such as symbols, brushes, patterns, spot colours and more. While the course is normally delivered to those with at least some experience with the program, we will include a revision of essentials such as bezier curves, object creation and layer construction as well as a discussion of new features such as the powerful Live Trace which permits tracing and objectification of hand drawings, scans and bitmap designs.

The course will also examine Illustrator's important relationship with Photoshop and Acrobat, insofar as those applications play a role in the textile design and production process.

Where possible, time will be made available to discuss any specific problems you may be having with your own work.

Please note:

• Masterclasses are also available in Photoshop, InDesign and Acrobat Professional which examine a range of techniques more applicable to those environments.



• Many of our customers prefer to organise customised training for one or more staff which is tailored towards their specific working environment. This may be a better option if you feel your needs fall outside those indicated in our outline or if times and dates of scheduled courses don't suit.

Drawing for Textiles and Fashion

• Understanding points and paths
• Editing points
• Creating points
• Converting points
• Mastering the Pen tool
• Working in Outline View

Output and Finishing for Fabric

• Files formats in Illustrator
• Export formats
• Saving to EPS and AI
• Exporting to PDF
• Preparing for other equipment
• Preparing for printing and assembly

Here's what you get on a Fearless course

Course Materials

We typically supply detailed course notes or a reference text or in some cases both. Either way, we try to provide sufficient supporting material so that you can return to your work place with sufficient confidence to permit further learning.

Catering

We like to look after our customers with:

• Quality catering from local cafes
• Fresh fruit
• Filter coffee and good biscuits
• Table sweets
• Chilled water

We also accommodate special dietary requirements such as vegetarian, gluten intolerance etc.

Support

There's nothing worse than leaving a course and feeling left on your own. We like to ensure our customers have all the support and backup they need including:

• 90 days unlimited support by phone, email or instant messaging
• On-going support through our Fearless Flyer program (for an extra fee)
• A free re-sit of this course on any scheduled date in the future

You also get

• A certificate of completion
• A CD-ROM with worked examples (for most courses)

Please select your location from the list below. A PDF brochure with the course description, price and other details will appear in your browser. Alternatively, right-click on the desired link and choose "Save file (or target) as..." and save the file to your local system. Adobe (Acrobat) reader is required.

View PDF Brochure for

• Adelaide
• Brisbane
• Canberra
• Hobart
• Melbourne
• Sydney

About this course

Adobe Acrobat allows PDF files to be created from any source document from simple Word or Excel files to complex InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator or other files. While this is not in itself a complex process, all PDF files are not created equal and there is much to learn about building the right PDF file for the job at hand.

This course uses Acrobat Professional to explore this powerful and flexible application taking source files from InDesign, Word, Illustrator and other applications.

What you will learn

The course begins with an introduction to the concept of PostScript and PDF before taking students through the process of making PDF files from a variety of source documents and optimising them for the task at hand: for print or web or distribution to others by email etc.

We'll then look at the Acrobat workspace in some detail, examining the many navigation, searching and sorting features the application has to offer before creating PDFs from within Acrobat itself from image files, text files, web pages and even emails. This will include an exercise in Optical Character Recognition (OCR), converting a scanned document to editable PDF text.

While Creating PDFs directly from MS Office applications will be looked at, we'll also go further using InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop to generate multi-layered PDFs for output to commercial printshop or digital printer.

We'll also look at more advanced features by editing PDFs within Acrobat including linking, using bookmarks, using pages (thumbnails), cropping, extracting, editing images and much more.

Finally, we'll look at annotations such as notes, review markup, free text, freehand drawing and stamp creation, as well as the powerful send-for-review features introduced in more recent versions of the program.

Annotations and Comments

• Understanding annotations
• Creating comments and markup
• Adding graphics, lines, circles and highlights
• Creating and adding stamps
• Attaching files
• Using the Comments palette

Articles, Bookmarks and Links

• Creating and editing bookmarks
• Linking to other documents
• Creating destinations
• Creating articles
• Setting article flow

Creating an Index

• Using catalog to create an index
• Searching indexed libraries
• Understanding search results

Here's what you get on a Fearless course

Course Materials

We typically supply detailed course notes or a reference text or in some cases both. Either way, we try to provide sufficient supporting material so that you can return to your work place with sufficient confidence to permit further learning.

Catering

We like to look after our customers with:

• Quality catering from local cafes
• Fresh fruit
• Filter coffee and good biscuits
• Table sweets
• Chilled water

We also accommodate special dietary requirements such as vegetarian, gluten intolerance etc.

Support

There's nothing worse than leaving a course and feeling left on your own. We like to ensure our customers have all the support and backup they need including:

• 90 days unlimited support by phone, email or instant messaging
• On-going support through our Fearless Flyer program (for an extra fee)
• A free re-sit of this course on any scheduled date in the future

You also get

• A certificate of completion
• A CD-ROM with worked examples (for most courses)

Please select your location from the list below. A PDF brochure with the course description, price and other details will appear in your browser. Alternatively, right-click on the desired link and choose "Save file (or target) as..." and save the file to your local system. Adobe (Acrobat) reader is required.

View PDF Brochure for

• Adelaide
• Brisbane
• Canberra
• Hobart
• Melbourne
• Sydney

About this course

Master the fine art of Cascading Style Sheet coding to both enhance and empower your web applications. This one-day course will build on previous Dreamweaver and HTML experience, and cover a wide range of CSS techniques.

CSS can be used not only to style particular elements of a webpage such as text or background colours but is now being used extensively in the creation of layouts and for positioning of page elements. The nature of CSS allows for flexible manipulation of styles, so that fast and complex changes can be made to webpages with relative ease.

This website is an example of how CSS can be used exclusively to control the layout and presentation. So if you are looking to create a highly flexible website and master the black art of CSS positioning and special effects, then this course is for you.

What you will learn

In this course we explore how Dreamweaver can be used as a CSS editor to create simple or sophisticated CSS, in both page-based styles or external style sheets. We then go on to illustrate advanced CSS techniques that allow you to build a complete website, with features such as dynamic navigation and rollover effects in CSS.

The importance of accessibility and how CSS can be used effectively to implement it is then addressed, as well as illustrating practical information on how to manage complex CSS files, prepare better CSS code and how to deal with the constraints that CSS has.

Care has been taken to offer advice towards testing for browser inconsistencies and offering practical advice to work round these issues. Future trends are then briefly touched on if time allows.

Streamlining the Coding Process

• Using CSS to reduce complexity of file structures
• Code reuse using generic classes
• Creating a common CSS file
• Using multiple CSS files to manage styles

Browsers and Standards

• CSS versions
• Browser support for CSS
• Known bugs and problsms
• Browser solutions and work-arounds

Strategies for CSS Constraints

• How to avoid lengthy CSS files
• Controlling vertical positioning
• Creating CSS pseudo-expressions
• Creating curved elements
• Creating multiple column structures in CSS

Mobile and Small Screen Design

• Understanding small-screen platforms
• iPhones and Mobiles
• PDAs and UMPCs
• Testing on phones

Here's what you get on a Fearless course

Course Materials

We typically supply detailed course notes or a reference text or in some cases both. Either way, we try to provide sufficient supporting material so that you can return to your work place with sufficient confidence to permit further learning.

Catering

We like to look after our customers with:

• Quality catering from local cafes
• Fresh fruit
• Filter coffee and good biscuits
• Table sweets
• Chilled water

We also accommodate special dietary requirements such as vegetarian, gluten intolerance etc.

Support

There's nothing worse than leaving a course and feeling left on your own. We like to ensure our customers have all the support and backup they need including:

• 90 days unlimited support by phone, email or instant messaging
• On-going support through our Fearless Flyer program (for an extra fee)
• A free re-sit of this course on any scheduled date in the future

You also get

• A certificate of completion
• A CD-ROM with worked examples (for most courses)

Please select your location from the list below. A PDF brochure with the course description, price and other details will appear in your browser. Alternatively, right-click on the desired link and choose "Save file (or target) as..." and save the file to your local system. Adobe (Acrobat) reader is required.

View PDF Brochure for

• Adelaide
• Brisbane
• Canberra
• Hobart
• Melbourne
• Sydney

About this course

If you are looking to integrate dynamic capabilities, and advanced technologies into your web applications, then this course will enable you to embark along the path of serious web development. We cover alternative layout techniques, how to use Dreamweaver in more productive and powerful ways, as well as considering how XML, JavaScript, PHP and MySQL can be used within Dreamweaver to build more interactive and functional web applications.

What you will learn

We start with a detailed look at CSS, and how it is increasingly used for page layout and positioning in modern webpages. More advanced Dreamweaver functionality is highlighted by an introduction to templates and layers, and how they can be used to create flexible and powerful site structures. Our focus then turns to code-related support features and library items, and when and where they should be used for maximum benefit. The importing and exporting of XML is then discussed, followed by a detailed overview of JavaScript and it’s role in web development.

Form based coding is then covered with focus on posting form data, creating receipt pages and validating forms using JavaScript. The course finishes with a brief introduction to dynamic data, with an overview of the working of PHP and MySQL as a means of connecting to data sources.

Introducing JavaScript

• Understanding JavaScript
• Creating a simple script
• Further scripting
• Behaviours and JavaScript
• Using JavaScript Behaviours
• Changing a behaviour
• Creating new actions
• Creating rollover images
• Creating drop-down menus

Working with Forms

• Creating forms
• Adding text fields
• Adding submit and reset buttons
• Formatting text fields
• Combo and list boxes
• Creating a jump menu

Introducing Server-Side Technolgies

• Understanding Web databases
• Comparing server-side technologies
• PHP, ASP, .NET, Cold Fusion
• Setting up a testing server
• Connecting to a data source

Here's what you get on a Fearless course

Course Materials

We typically supply detailed course notes or a reference text or in some cases both. Either way, we try to provide sufficient supporting material so that you can return to your work place with sufficient confidence to permit further learning.

Catering

We like to look after our customers with:

• Quality catering from local cafes
• Fresh fruit
• Filter coffee and good biscuits
• Table sweets
• Chilled water

We also accommodate special dietary requirements such as vegetarian, gluten intolerance etc.

Support

There's nothing worse than leaving a course and feeling left on your own. We like to ensure our customers have all the support and backup they need including:

• 90 days unlimited support by phone, email or instant messaging
• On-going support through our Fearless Flyer program (for an extra fee)
• A free re-sit of this course on any scheduled date in the future

You also get

• A certificate of completion
• A CD-ROM with worked examples (for most courses)

Please select your location from the list below. A PDF brochure with the course description, price and other details will appear in your browser. Alternatively, right-click on the desired link and choose "Save file (or target) as..." and save the file to your local system. Adobe (Acrobat) reader is required.

View PDF Brochure for

• Adelaide
• Brisbane
• Canberra
• Hobart
• Melbourne
• Sydney