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Adobe Acrobat X – Buy Six & Save 25%

Dan — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 21:57:22 +0000

For a limited time only, Adobe Acrobat X Professional and Acrobat X Standard are 25% off when you buy six licenses. The Adobe Transactional Licensing Program (TLP) is running a 20% off promotion, but here at SoftwareMedia.com we’re upping the ante by 5%, so you can save even more.

Adobe Acrobat X Standard lets you create and share PDF’s with ease and reliability. With X Standard you get PDF file conversion, which allows for simple conversion from the Microsoft Office suites, as well as Firefox and Lotus Notes, and then back to PDF. You can also easily scan documents, creating PDFs that can be edited and searched.

Adobe Acrobat X Pro has all the same features as X Standard with advanced applications. Acrobat X Pro comes with a Adobe LiveCycle, which can automate multistage tasks with the Action Wizard. You will be able to organize your PDF portfolios with corporate logos and branding and be able to permanently delete sensitive info with the redaction and sanitization capabilities.

Start the creation and collaboration of professional-looking PDF’s with the only PDF software that helps defend your security and mitigate risk. This promotion will be running from February 1, 2012 through July 31, 2012, so be sure to take advantage of the great savings before it’s too late.

To learn more information on the differences between Standard and Professional check out our article Adobe Acrobat X Standard vs Professional.

Adobe CS6 Upgrade Policy – Changing the Rules (Again)

Dan — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 00:36:52 +0000

Back in November 2011 Adobe announced that you would need the most recent versions of Creative Suite, 5 or 5.5, in order to upgrade to CS6. This policy meant that if you had an older version, such as CS3 or CS4, you would need to upgrade to CS5 or CS5.5, which could run you anywhere from $400 – $1000, and then have to pay a fee to upgrade again to CS6 once it comes out. When Adobe announced this in November they offered a 20% off promotion till the end of the year for upgrades to CS5.5.

Here at SoftwareMedia.com we felt the pain of being forced to upgrade and dropped our CS5.5 upgrade prices even lower than Adobe’s advertised discount and now include a free gift with purchase. Late December, in an attempt to give customers a break, Adobe announced their 20% off promotion would continue until March 15th. But this plan still wasn’t satisfactory with customers and, most likely due to the overwhelmingly negative response, there was a change of heart over at Adobe.

Fortunately, Adobe has revised their upgrade policy once again. For a limited time customers will be able to upgrade to CS6 from versions going back to CS3, reverting to the previous “3 versions back” upgrade policy. So, if you have CS3 or CS4 you will no longer have to upgrade to CS5 or CS5.5 before upgrading to CS6 when it is released. But, this offer is scheduled to be a special introductory price only.

This special upgrade policy will be in effect from the release of CS6 until December 31st, 2012.

This change in upgrade pricing will hopefully allow industry professionals to stay on top of their game with all the new features in CS6, without breaking the bank. But, as we mentioned before, the previous policy wasn’t unanimously disagreed with. Some argued that encouraging people to stay up to date will make collaboration easier among teams by avoiding the headache of sharing files with older versions. In any case, creative professionals will now have more flexibility with upgrading older versions or upgrading to CS6 once it comes out. We’ll have to wait and see what Adobe does with later versions but we’ll keep you updated if Adobe releases any information.

Up to 50% Off Total Training Online Subscriptions

Dan — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 09:00:49 +0000

Did you know Total Training provides all-access online library subscriptions? Broaden your knowledge and fine tune your skills with popular software from Microsoft, Adobe, Intuit, and more. With online subscriptions you have 24/7 access to all of the online training programs wherever you are without the need for physical software.

Subscriptions include all the great features of the Total Training software. Downloadable project files allow you to work along side the instructor as you learn applications and features. The interactive interface allows you to work at your own pace, track your progress and bookmark lessons. Subscriptions also include any new release to the subscription library as soon as it comes out, at no extra charge, for the entirety of your subscription. Some of the recent additions for training include:

Adobe Acrobat X Pro: Essentials
Microsoft PowerPoint 2010
Microsoft Word 2010
Microsoft Access 2010: Essentials
Adobe InDesign CS5: Interactivity
Adobe CS5.5 Production Premium: What’s New
And Many More…

In addition to the all-access subscription, you can opt for only the Adobe or Microsoft subscriptions at a lesser cost. Licenses are available in a variety of sizes to meet your personal or small business needs. Check out Softwaremedia.com for up to 50% off Total Training Online Subscriptions.

Adobe CS6 Upgrade Policy – Changing the Rules

Kyle — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 16:16:47 +0000

2011 has been a crazy year for software. Between hacktivists, anti-trust litigation, software subscriptions and Final Cut Pro X (hahahahaha), we thought we’d seen it all. That was, of course, until earlier this week when our Adobe contact informed us that the makers of such beloved creative software as Photoshop, Illustrator and After Effects would be making drastic -and, to some, infuriating- changes to their current pricing models.

For years, Adobe has had a “three versions back” upgrade model, meaning that anyone using a Creative Suite that was less than three versions out of date would receive discounted prices when upgrading. Well, say goodbye to that, because as of next year, with the scheduled Adobe CS6 release, Adobe Systems Incorporated will require that anyone wishing to receive upgrade pricing own the latest version of the software. In other words, individuals using copies of CS5 or CS5.5 will still be eligible for discounts when upgrading to CS6, however anyone using CS4 or earlier will be forced to pay full price for the latest release.

Considering that a large portion of Adobe’s (notably loyal) user base tends to remain at least one or two versions behind in order to keep costs low, this move could seem to some to be a betrayal of those very same customers who made the company what it is today. Despite an overwhelmingly negative response, however, Adobe seems unlikely to revert to the original upgrade model, pushing instead for customers to pay a monthly fee for the Creative Suite Subscription Editions or the newly announced Adobe Creative Cloud.

While many Adobe customers may be angered (or at least a bit irritated) by Adobe’s restructuring of the Creative Suite upgrade pricing, the outrage is seemingly not unanimous. Some have argued that the change is not entirely without merit, speculating that the move will create an incentive for users to stay current with their creative software and discourage people from straggling two or three versions behind the industry standard. As anyone who has done creative collaboration knows, trying to send a CS5 file to a CS3 user ranges somewhere between frustrating and cataclysmically stressful.

This move by Adobe, whether a change for good or ill, will definitely affect people where it hurts the most: the wallet. So, to help alleviate the possible financial burdens that Creative Suite users may be facing in the future, SoftwareMedia.com has dropped their prices on Adobe CS5.5 upgrades to more than 20% off, which is lower even than Adobe’s advertised discounts. We urge CS users one and all to make the upgrade before CS6 is released and avoid the inevitably pricey full-cost CS6 license.

Save now... save more later!

Create Custom Brushes in Adobe Illustrator – 60 Second Tutorial

Kyle — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 16:07:24 +0000

Time again for another of our 60 Second Tutorials. In this tutorial, Kyle shows us how to create a custom brush in Adobe Illustrator. Considering that Halloween is right around the corner, he decided to fashion his custom brush in the likeness of the sleeping, eldritch horror, dread Cthulhu.

Video Transcript

Hey everybody, Kyle here again from SoftwareMedia TV. Today, I’m going to show you how to make a custom brush in Adobe Illustrator.

So, what you want to do first is you want to select any one of these tools and make a shape of any kind. In the spirit of Halloween, I am going to make a Cthulhu shape, and that is going to be our brush.

Alright, draw a little octopus head, some eyes, wings… there you go.

And then, while you have your shape selected, go over to your brush palette , select “new brush”, “art brush”. And there’s a bunch of parameters here that you can change to get your brush exactly how you want it. Once you have everything selected, hit “ok”.

We can just delete this.

Go over to our paintbrush tool, make sure you’ve got your custom brush selected… and there you go. You have a brand-new, scary Cthulhu brush.

Ia Cthulhu.

Happy halloween, from SoftwareMedia.com

Premiere Pro Audio Cleanup – 60 Second Tutorial

Kyle — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 16:25:58 +0000

Audio is one of the key components to good quality video, and let’s face it, the built-in microphones in most consumer (and many professional) video cameras are somewhere between crap and garbage. While this problem can usually be avoided by using an external lapel or shotgun microphone, not everyone has access to the equipment, and many consumer cameras do not support external inputs.

In this Adobe Premiere Pro tutorial, I will show you how to clean the hiss and noise from the audio in your Premiere project, by using the integration with Adobe Soundbooth (both are included in the Production Premium and Master Collection).

Video Transcript:

Hey everybody, and welcome to SoftwarMedia TV. My name is Kyle and today I’m going to show you how to use Adobe Soundbooth to reduce the noise in your Premiere Pro project.

So, what you want to do is you want to right-click here. Go to “Edit in Adobe Soundbooth,” “Render and Replace.” This will open up Soundbooth, and it will have your clip in it to edit.

You can hear that.

So what you want to do is you want to highlight your noise, go to “Processes,” “Capture Noise Print”.

Now you want to right-click, go to “Processes” again, “Reduce Noise”.

Make sure that “Use captured noise print” is selected. You can see that it’s already reducing that frequency, and you can mess with the levels here a bit, to get it how you want it.

Hit… save it.

You can X out, go right back into Premiere Pro and your audio is cleaned up.

And it’s that easy.

Acrobat Standard vs Professional

Kyle — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 16:43:51 +0000

Standard? Professional? Super-ultra-mega-awesome edition?

Software applications often come in multiple editions, and it can be difficult to determine which version is right for you. Standard editions might be cheaper, but don’t always offer all of the necessary tools and utilities you need to get the job done right. Adobe Acrobat X is certainly one of those programs.

Acrobat is available in several different editions, each of which offer a different level of utility, from simple viewing and sharing of pdf files with Reader, all the way up to the full-service Acrobat X Suite, which includes numerous software programs (including Photoshop) that enable the widest range of PDF editing and creation capability.

Many people have difficulty in deciding which edition best meets their needs. Have no fear, this Acrobat Standard vs Professional buying guide is just the ticket to help you decide which edition is best for you.

Adobe Acrobat Ten Suite: Your Alternative to Creative Suite?

emily — Wed, 18 May 2011 13:27:08 +0000

There was something a little different on tap with the Acrobat release this time around – Acrobat Suite. This is the newest member of the Acrobat family and aside from a very slight annoyance at yet another Adobe edition to sort through, we think this is an incredibly useful and appropriate combination of tools for Acrobat users.

In fact, if your job entails things like frequent presentations and customer facing materials, but you don’t need the other bells and whistles in the full blown Creative Suite, Acrobat Ten Suite could be a cheaper alternative to Creative Suite.

So what’s included in Acrobat Ten Suite?

The base product in this suite is what you’d expect: Acrobat X Pro. The content rich program has everything you need to create the media you need.

The big kicker that is added onto Acrobat in this suite is Adobe Photoshop CS5. It’s a no-brainer that Acrobat users must often use photo editing software to crop, color correct and otherwise edit the content of their PDFs. Those who don’t have Photoshop will find the new content-aware fill feature of particular use. This is one of the most hyped features in the CS5 release because it magically replaces your background when you remove a section of an image.

If you, like many, use PowerPoint presentations on a regular basis, you might find Adobe’s Presenter software, included in Acrobat Ten Suite, of benefit. This plug-in for PowerPoint allows you to narrate, add videos and other forms of interactivity to your presentations.

Screen recording and “elearning” software is becoming more and more widely used (see 13 ways you can use it), and Adobe Captivate is one of the top programs on the market. This complex and robust program is worth $800 alone, and combined with the other offerings in this suite can be priceless to your business.

Multimedia users will appreciate the included Media Encoder CS5, which allows you to to easily convert to Flash and compress high resolution videos into a more manageable sized file.

Then, assemble all of these files into one PDF portfolio. So complex, yet so simple.

Compare pricing on Adobe Creative Suite and Acrobat Ten Suite to see if it’s a good fit for you as an alternative to Creative Suite.

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Adobe Premiere Pro Tutorial – Learn How to Chroma Key

Kyle — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 21:41:52 +0000

Chroma keying (using a green screen to superimpose an actor onto a background) is one of the most often used and -at one time- difficult digital effects to execute well. Achieving a professional-quality key used to require countless hours of tedious, detail-intensive work. Now, Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 has an awesome tool called the Ultra Keyer which makes chroma keying easier and faster than ever. In fact, it sort of makes me wish that I didn’t spend $60,000 for 4 years of film school and just shelled out a few hundred bucks for Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 and a video tutorial program like Total Training for Premiere Pro. At any rate, I have put together an Adobe Premiere Pro tutorial video to help you learn how to chroma key, and begin your journey on the path to becoming a special effects Jedi… er editor.

Whether you think the old-school Muppets still look better than Jar-Jar, digital effects and computer generated imaging have become a staple in the modern film industry and the fact remains that computer imaging and effects are here to stay. However, despite the sad reality of the decline of Hensonesque animatronics and puppetry (Disney Corp. actually bought out the Jim Henson Creature Shop), there still exists a rich and interesting world of cinematic opportunity to explore, and digital effects are not nearly as difficult as many would have you believe.

Adobe Subscription Editions – New Software Trend?

Kyle — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 18:02:42 +0000

With the recent announcement of the upcoming Adobe CS5.5 release, we at Software News Daily have been running ourselves ragged in an attempt to bring you all the latest Adobe news. We have discovered, in our tireless quest for knowledge and power (we shall rule the software market with an iron fist!), that with the CS5.5 announcement, Adobe has proclaimed that it will now -in what seems at first glance to be an awesome deal- offer the use of their creative software for a monthly fee in the new Adobe Subscription Editions.

The Adobe subscription edition is available only for Adobe CS5.5 and works exactly like the purchased programs, with the same features, capabilities and functionality. While this may seem a boon to those of us with empty wallets, upon closer examination, it seems to us that some users will benefit more than others.

Those customers who only need a program for a short period -a few months or so- will save a considerable amount of money. Long-term users, on the other hand, will ultimately pay considerably more for the subscription plans than for the full Adobe Creative Suite editions. We ran the numbers and –after doubling checking our equations- have concluded that a customer using month-to-month subscription plans for a full 24-month CS edition lifecycle will ultimately pay nearly twice the average cost of the full program; a program that you don’t even get to keep.

The use of subscriptions is no longer exclusive to the realm of MMO video games and is seemingly becoming a growing trend among serious software companies. Adobe is not the only software manufacturer to offer licensing on a monthly basis. Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) has been offering subscription licenses, in addition to the option to purchase the full software, for quite some time.

Total Training, a leader in software tutorials, has also begun to offer subscription licenses to allow users access to their database for the length of their subscription. These subscriptions actually make sense for long-term use, as an All-Access Online Training Library license allow users 24/7 access to all of the excellent training materials (we particularly like the Adobe CS5 tutorials), project files and continuous updates that are not available with the purchase of the programs themselves. You can essentially use your one year subscription to learn how to expertly utilize any and all programs that you need, and with no need to continually renew.

Whatever your software needs -long or short term use- there are a growing number of software developers who are offering licensing to meet those specific requirements. Adobe, Microsoft and Total Training have all jumped on the subscription bandwagon, and from the looks of things many popular software companies seem likely to follow.