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Hello lynda.com Newsletter Subscriber,

Welcome to our June 2008 newsletter!

lynda.com: Helping you learn, master, and apply digital tools and techniques.

Letter from Lynda

Hello Everyone,

Since releasing our first Creative Inspiration course, “tokidoki ” in January, we’ve received an overwhelming number of positive comments from our members, along with requests for us to produce more of this kind of programming. In response, we’ve been hard at work for the past several months and have created a new division at lynda.com dedicated to inspiration. Creative Inspiration courses will now be a regular feature on lynda.com. We’ll release a new installment every month, with plans to increase the output as soon as we’ve refined our format. The goal of these movies is to inspire our viewers by showing how successful creative professionals think and work. Each installment will be crafted to best reflect the unique appeal of a particular artist or studio.

New Creative Inspiration: Share With Your Friends for Free!

We’ve just released the second installment of our Creative Inspiration series. It profiles Douglas Kirkland, one of the most accomplished and celebrated photographers of the last fifty years. This series of videos features Douglas Kirkland’s photography, from his early career at Look magazine during the golden age of photojournalism in the 60s and 70s to his transition from analog to digital photography in the 90s. His iconic images of Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Jack Nicholson, and Nicole Kidman, among others, are known all over the world. The piece is 1.25 hours long, and features movies on Douglas’s work, his studio, and his on-location photo shoots. It also includes a presentation showcasing his body of work, a discussion with a group of high school photography students, an interview with Douglas and me, and more.

Adobe Labs Releases Free Betas; Lynda Offers Just-In-Time Training!

Adobe continues to delight customers by offering public betas of upcoming software, having released new versions of Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and Soundbooth on Adobe Labs. We have training for all three products live on lynda.com today! How do we create this training so fast? For the second year in a row, lynda.com is honored to be selected as Adobe’s in-the-box training provider for its next suite of software products, so we have an inside view of all the upcoming releases. Once again, you can expect us to publish training on new Adobe products the day they’re released! You can use lynda.com for training, and to evaluate whether you want to start using the betas or upgrade once the new versions are finalized. Because Adobe offers these betas for free, we publish our beta videos for free as well. If you’ve been telling your friends about lynda.com and want them to try our training, send them this link. All the movies are unlocked once they enter their email addresses.

Feedback Welcome!

While we’ve always had a general feedback form at lynda.com, we’ve made it easier to review individual courses with a new system we’ve just added on our website. From now on, the “course feedback” link you see above will be available on all of our course pages. Please share your opinions with us. Our purpose is to serve your learning needs, and we want to hear from you!

Thanks for reading my letter, and I hope to find you here again next month to share news and updates!

—Lynda

New releases

	Photoshop CS3 Mastering Lab Color with Deke McClelland Running time: 6.5 hrs. (Online/Coming Soon to DVD-ROM)		Soundbooth CS4 Beta New Features with Bruce Williams Running time: 0.5 hrs. (Online Exclusive)
	Fireworks CS4 Beta New Features with Jim Babbage Running time: 1 hrs. (Online Exclusive)		Dreamweaver CS4 Beta New Features with James Williamson Running time: 2 hrs. (Online Exclusive)
	Douglas Kirkland: Creative Inspiration with Douglas Kirkland Running time: 1.25 hrs. (Online Exclusive)		InDesign CS3 Long Documents with Nigel French Running time: 5.75 hrs. (Online/Coming Soon to DVD-ROM)
	AutoCAD 2008 Essential Training with Jeff Bartels Running time: 7 hrs. (Online/DVD-ROM)		Reason 4 Essential Training with Bruce Williams Running time: 5 hrs. (Online/DVD-ROM)
	Illustrator CS3 for the Web with Mordy Golding Running time: 3 hrs. (Online/CD-ROM)

Podcasts from lynda.com

Covering everything from software tricks to industry events to interviews with professionals, lynda.com podcasts are well worth the download. Last month we talked about:

Episode 109: Flash CS3 Interactive Video Techniques
Episode 110: Premiere Elements 4 Essential Training
Episode 111: Painter X Essential Training
Episode 112: Illustrator CS3 for the Web

Watch the lynda.com video podcast via iTunes or via RSS.

Keep an eye on the site for these and many other helpful new courses coming to the Online Training Library® and the lynda.com store soon:

Ultra CS3 Essential Training
After Effects CS3: Animating Characters
CorelDRAW X4 Essential Training
Joomla! 1.5 Essential Training
WordPress.com 2.5 Essential Training
VUVOX Collage: Online Media Mashups
Aperture 2 Essential Training
Acrobat 9 Professional Essential Training
Acrobat 9 Professional Creating Forms
Rick Morris: Creative Inspiration

Testimonial of the month

Seeing it on artist’s terms

I wanted to extend my thanks to those at lynda.com for the Artist Series with Hillman Curtis.

I work as the only in-house designer for a large level 2 trauma center in Casper, Wyoming. I don’t get the opportunity to hear from many other designers about how they approach their trade and what it means to them.

I am encouraged and inspired when I have the chance to hear and see a series such as this one.

A person can read about an artist, but it doesn’t compare to actually seeing the artist explain it in their own terms.

Good job and thanks again.

- eric v. - 3/2008

Read more great feedback.

“Tanning Skin”
from Photoshop CS3 Mastering Lab Color
with Deke McClelland

In this exercise, we’re going to use some Lab color techniques to tan up a person’s skin a little bit, give him a healthy glow. We’ll also add a bit of yellow to reduce the pink cast that sometimes shows up in a pale person’s skin. We’re not looking for a George Hamilton tan, we just want to make him look like he gets out once in a while!

First, be sure you’re working in the Lab Color space by choosing the Image > Mode > Lab Color menu item.

Now add an adjustment layer onto the background layer by Alt + clicking or Option + clicking on the black/white icon and choosing Curves. Name this layer “tan.” Start by adjusting the b channel. Click on the black point in the lower left corner of the curve, which represents the cobalts in the image, and press Shift + Up Arrow. This will bring the output value to -118, adding a bit of yellow to the face.

To keep him from looking jaundiced, let’s add a bit of ruddiness back into his skin by adjusting the a channel. Select the black point again, representing crimson in the image, and press the Up Arrow three times to raise the output value to -125.

He’s still very bright. We can calm this down in the Lightness channel, where we’ll apply the most significant modifications. Lift a midtone color by Ctrl + clicking or Cmd + clicking in an area of his cheek, which should set a point somewhere in the middle of the curve. Assuming an Input value of exactly 50, set the Output value to something like 40. That will darken up the midtones quite nicely.

Now we want to address the highlights, so lift a color from a glowing area of the forehead, which should give you an Input of around 85. Set the corresponding Output value to around 77.

Click OK to accept these modifications, and toggle the visibility of the adjustment layer to see the difference. You should find that the image looks a lot better.

View sample movies for Photoshop CS3 Mastering Lab Color.

Visit the lynda.com booth at these events:

College Computer and Electronics Show (C2ES)

June 10–13, 2008
Monona Terrace Convention Center, Madison, WI
More info »

SIGGRAPH 2008

August 11–15, 2008
Los Angeles Convention Center, Los Angeles, CA
More info »

Bookmark www.lynda.com/events to keep up with our busy schedule.

Thanks very much for reading our news.

We forever appreciate your support. Happy Learning!

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