Education Technology

The Photoshop Touch app was very easy to learn and get started with. I did use some of the tutorials, and had read a few posts on the education exchange site, but it was very intuitive. Features include layers, effects, filters, tone and edge editing, text, search for images, share images, wireless printing, and much more. The tools are all, literally at your fingertips on the app. Because it's not the full version of Photoshop, it's easier to find the tools that you use the most. It is probably the best image editing app for tablets around and still has all the really important and useful features from the full version of Photoshop. It's easy to bring in an image, edit and manipulate it, and the save it. It's only $9.99, which is super cheap for Photoshop and the Education Volume app store has it for $4.99, which makes it very affordable for education.


I had some fun playing with different pictures I took with the iPad, although the quality of them wasn't great using the iPad's camera, so I also brought in some other pictures and graphics files to play with. It was very easy to clean up images and there is even a gallery of styles and effects that you can look at and then see a step-by-step tutorial on how to achieve those effects.

This is a great app for education. It's inexpensive, easy to use, full featured, and a tool that students should learn to use as it will help them in college and careers.

Here are some screenshots from Adobe's site:

Adobe Announces Creative Cloud/Suite 6 for Students and Educators
Link to Photoshop Touch page on Adobe's site: http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop-touch.html

Original Announcement of app: Adobe PhotoShop Touch for iPad2 now available
Photoshop Touch for iOS. $9.99 


Photoshop Touch for Android. $9.99 




DISCLAIMER: I received a free copy of the Adobe Photoshop Touch app to do this review. I have been using it, and the Adobe Education Exchange, as part of this review.

News Release from Adobe:

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Adobe Foundation today announced it is committing one million dollars to establish the Adobe Foundation Creativity Scholarships – a new global initiative intended to unlock the creative potential of students. Offered to high-school seniors who participate in the Adobe Youth Voices program, the scholarship will help them continue their education, pursue creative careers and find innovative ways to improve their communities.

“Our vision for this scholarship fund is to support the next generation of creative thinkers and propel the future careers of those who create.”

Students from the Adobe Youth Voices (AYV) network, which includes more than 800 sites in 52 countries, will be eligible to apply for the scholarships. AYV is Adobe’s signature global philanthropy initiative focused on teaching youth from underserved communities the power of creative self-expression and global citizenship. The first scholarship application cycle is expected to begin in spring 2013, with awards distributed for the start of the academic year beginning in fall 2013.

“The urge to create has never been stronger, and the ability to create is unprecedented, yet a new global study shows that most people feel they are not living up to their own creative potential,” said Shantanu Narayen, president and chief executive officer, Adobe (see separate release). “We challenge the notion that creativity is reserved for an elite few, and believe that no matter what you do, everyone has the potential to be creative.”

“With Adobe Foundation Scholarships we are reinforcing our commitment to closing the creativity gap,” Narayen added. “Our vision for this scholarship fund is to support the next generation of creative thinkers and propel the future careers of those who create.”

The Adobe Foundation Creativity Scholarships will be focused on youth who plan to pursue an academic program or career in a creative field at an accredited college, university or certification program. Scholarships will be based on financial need, academic performance and potential. Individual scholarship amounts and lengths will vary based on country, curriculum and other factors.

Additional details about the application process will be announced later this year.


Source: Adobe http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/201204/042312AdobeFoundationCreativityScholarship.html

 

In Photoshop CS6, designers will experience incredible performance, powered by the Adobe Mercury Graphics Engine, enabling near instant results from essential editing tools, including Liquify, Puppet Warp, Transform and Lighting Effects.

Adobe has built on Photoshop’s breakthrough Content-Aware capabilities with advanced new Content-Aware Patch and Content-Aware Move features.

Illustrator CS6 debuts a revamped modern interface and features include a new Image Tracing Engine, Pattern Creation and Gradient Strokes. The Mercury performance system delivers speed and stability, including 64-bit support for Mac OS and Windows.

InDesign CS6 continues to blaze a trail in publishing, streamlining the creation of multiple layouts from a single set of content with new Adaptive Design Tools – Alternate Layout, Liquid Layout, Content Collector Tools and Linked Content.

A brand new application, Adobe Muse™, a radical new tool that enables designers to create and publish HTML5 web sites without writing code.


Adobe Doubles-Down on HTML5 Tooling for Web Professionals

Innovative new workflows and capabilities across Adobe tools simplify the creative process for today’s web designers, developers and interactive professionals.

Web pros can conveniently integrate HTML5 animations, created with Adobe Edge Preview, into their Dreamweaver projects, driving home Adobe’s leadership in tooling for the HTML5 web standard.

Dreamweaver CS6 addresses the challenge of responsive web designs with the ability to build fluid grid layouts replacing the tedious manual process of creating and configuring separate CSS-based interfaces for phone, tablet and desktop.

Through direct integration with Adobe’s recently announced PhoneGap Build service, Dreamweaver CS6 helps round out a Web professional’s skillset and enables them to produce native mobile applications for multiple platforms.

Flash Professional CS6 users can easily translate and transition their skills to HTML5 using the Flash Professional Toolkit for CreateJS. Flash Professional CS6 also helps designers to create exciting and impactful gaming experiences and advancements include the ability to generate sprite sheets that improve workflows and performance.

Pre-built native extensions and new packaging options, leveraging the latest Adobe Flash Player and AIR runtimes, help expand and ease app delivery to Android and iOS devices.


Production Premium CS6 Pushes Boundaries of Video Creativity

Redesigned by and for video editors, with major performance enhancements, the tools included in Adobe Creative Suite 6 Production Premium set a new standard in professional video.

With dozens of new features Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 is the hub of any professional video workflow, featuring a sleek new editing environment. The powerful Adobe Mercury Playback Engine now supports OpenCL on MacBook Pros.

The most significant After Effects release in a decade, After Effects CS6 is faster and more responsive than ever. With Global Performance Cache, previews are saved and ready to go— cutting the time spent bouncing between projects.

New to Production Premium are Adobe® Prelude™ CS6, which streamlines logging and ingest workflows in post-production, and Adobe SpeedGrade, which contains powerful finishing tools for film finishing and color grading.

Adobe Audition CS6 accelerates audio post-production: real-time clip stretching makes it simple to stretch clips to fit and edit; and Automatic Speech Alignment introduces a powerful new engine for automated dialogue analysis.

A new 3rd party API for hardware integration – Adobe Mercury Transmit – allows broadcast video monitoring to connect directly into the Mercury Playback Engine via third-party cards from AJA, Blackmagic Design, and Matrox.


Fast, Feature-Packed Photoshop CS6 and Photoshop CS6 Extended

This major release of the undisputed standard for professional digital imaging integrates over 600 new features and enhancements. The software includes groundbreaking innovations and unparalleled performance breakthroughs that expand the frontiers of imaging science, and deliver new levels of creativity and increased efficiency. Photoshop CS6 Extended integrates the state-of-the-art editing, compositing, and graphic design capabilities of Photoshop CS6, as well as advanced tools for 3D design, image and video editing, and quantitative analysis which address the unique needs of the graphic design, video, Web, architecture, medical, manufacturing and engineering industries.

Since Photoshop CS6 was released as a public beta on March 22nd, 2012 for Mac OS and Microsoft® Windows® platforms, there have been nearly one million downloads of the software worldwide – surpassing any public beta in Adobe’s history.

Create With Imaging Innovation and Peak Performance

Photoshop CS6 and Photoshop CS6 Extended deliver unparalleled speed and power combined with the creative tools necessary to perform advanced image manipulation, design, motion‐based content editing, and compositing. The software helps users to patch images with control for exceptional results; edit with real-time interactions and a fluid feel powered by new GPU acceleration in editing tools; easily edit video; perform automatic tone mapping and sharpening; and use improved design tools for better results with fewer steps. Creatives will be able to take advantage of an efficient, modern UI that puts all focus on images, and sync settings and preferences for consistent workflows across multiple devices via Adobe Creative Cloud.


Photoshop CS6 features include:

Content-Aware Patch – Allows greater control by letting users choose the sample area used to create a patch

Adobe Mercury Graphics Engine – Takes advantage of cross-platform 64-bit support to speed up imaging and editing tasks, and process large images faster

New and Re-engineered Design Tools – Type styles enable consistent formatting; vector layers apply strokes and add gradients to vector objects; custom strokes and dashed lines are easily created; quick layers search and more

Intuitive Video Creation – The full range of familiar Photoshop tools and an intuitive set of new video tools to create and enhance any video clip

Blur Gallery – A simple new interface with on-image controls allows users to quickly create photographic blur effects including tilt-shift effects, blur everything with one focal point, or vary the blurriness between multiple focal points



Photoshop CS6 Extended includes all Photoshop CS6 features and:

Mercury Graphics Engine for 3D – Increased power and speed via engine optimized for 3D imaging

3D Fingertip Controls – UI improvements for more efficient 3D workflows

New 3D Effects – Reflections and “drag-able” shadows to enhance images



More product information is available at: http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite.html. 

On Monday, April 23rd, Adobe announced Adobe Creative Cloud Student and Teacher Edition, and Creative Suite 6 Student and Teacher Edition for institutions, educators and students worldwide.


In addition to 14 new CS6 point products and four Creative Suites, Adobe is now delivering its first cloud offering for students and educators. Adobe Creative Cloud is a hub where students and educators can explore, share and deliver creative content using any of the Adobe Creative Suite 6 desktop applications, as well as new tools for HTML5 such as Adobe Muse™ and Adobe Edge Preview. By offering integration with Adobe Touch Apps, headlined by Photoshop® Touch, Adobe Creative Cloud enables new mobile workflows, from ideation to publishing, that bring the power of Adobe innovation to the classroom via iPad and Android tablets.



Prepare Students for Careers

With new capabilities designed to help students across all disciplines create stunning digital content that stands out, Adobe Creative Suite 6 gives students the ability to learn the skills needed in today’s competitive workforce:

Gain digital content creation skills across video, animations, 3D and photos with major updates to Adobe Photoshop CS6, Adobe Premiere® Pro CS6, Adobe After Effects ® CS6, and Adobe Audition® CS6. With the new Adobe Photoshop CS6, students can express themselves by leveraging the powerful new 3D and video editing tools for media they have captured across multiple devices.

Create on any device with Adobe Creative Cloud Connection which enables the syncing, sharing and storing of files from Adobe Touch Apps® for download and use with CS6 desktop products. For example, educators and students can work with a file in Photoshop Touch on iPad and use Adobe Creative Cloud Connect to sync and share that file on the desktop for refinement using Photoshop CS6.

Get noticed with multimedia-rich portfolios, websites and applications. InDesign CS6 extends its lead in digital publishing, streamlining the creation of multiple layouts from a single set of content, helping to deliver interactive campus publications for iPad, Kindle Fire and Android devices. Dreamweaver CS6 enables students to create high-impact school or personal websites.


Engage Students, Empower Faculty and Advance Teaching

The new Creative Suite 6 release gives faculty and students the tools to easily visualize, understand, and communicate information in creative ways across print, web, video, and mobile devices.

Create digital education content ranging from digital storytelling for history and languages, and gaming and animations for math, to data visualization in the sciences – all in a way that engages students and creates rich learning experiences. Adobe Creative Suite 6 provides the features and flexibility to produce interactive presentations and explore the boundaries of creativity and critical thinking.

Expand the delivery of education content with multi-screen publishing across multiple platforms and devices using HTML5 and the very latest standards for web, mobile, eBooks, and tablets.

Improve productivity and efficiency in the classroom with simplified workflows, speed and performance enhancements, and a new, more intuitive user interface across the CS6 product set.

Empower educators with ISTE-aligned curricula with the release of three newly-updated year-long, project based curriculums for graphic design and print production, web design and development, and video production. These curricula are available on the Adobe Education Exchange (http://edexchange.adobe.com), along with resources from the education community.

Certify industry-centric technical and communication skills with Adobe certifications. More than 300,000 students worldwide have been certified through the Adobe Certified Associate examination. With CS6, Adobe and CertiPort are offering new, updated curricula and certification for this major release. Educators and students can get certified for both entry-level skills as an Adobe Certified Associate (ACA), and professional-level skills as an Adobe Certified Expert (ACE).



Pricing and Availability

Adobe Creative Suite 6 products and Adobe Creative Cloud are scheduled to be available within 30 days. The Student and Teacher Edition of Adobe Creative Cloud is available for US$29.99/month. Volume licensing for Creative Cloud “team-ready” is available via the Adobe Transactional Licensing Program. More information on Adobe licensing can be found at: http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/volumelicensing/education/.

Adobe is also offering a new Adobe K-12 Enterprise Agreement designed for the needs of school districts in the United States and Canada. Customers can purchase Creative Suite 6 via Adobe.com and through select retail and online stores. More product information is available at: http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite.html.

For more detailed information about educational upgrade policies and pricing, as well as the full portfolio of suites, please visit http://www.adobe.com/education.edu.html.




Related:

Adobe Digital School Collection - supporting creativity and digital literacy

Adobe Education Exchange - tips, training, help, resources, lesson ideas, community forum and more for using Adobe products in education.

Adobe Launches Creative Cloud

Creative Cloud is Adobe's way of bringing their software to the cloud. For a monthly fee, you get access to all of Adobe's products, get the most updated versions, and can access them from home or work. Your files are also available through the cloud.

The subscription fee for this service is cheaper than purchasing licenses for every computer and it will make updates easier on your IT department. The products have been updated with great new features and run faster, you can work on your files in a web browser, and you can work from any device, including an iPad.

The Student and Teacher Edition of Adobe Creative Cloud is available for US$29.99/month. Volume licensing for Creative Cloud “team-ready” is available via the Adobe Transactional Licensing Program. More information on Adobe licensing can be found at: http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/volumelicensing/education/.

Adobe is also offering a new Adobe K-12 Enterprise Agreement designed for the needs of school districts in the United States and Canada. Customers can purchase Creative Suite 6 via Adobe.com and through select retail and online stores. More product information is available at: http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite.html. 

One of the nice things with this is that districts will always be able to have the most up to date product, and teachers will be able to access the Creative Cloud from home and school. 

For more detailed informationabout educational upgrade policies and pricing, as well as the full portfolio of suites, please visit http://www.adobe.com/education.edu.html.



Adobe® Creative Cloud, a radical new way of providing tools and services that will change the game for creatives worldwide. A subscription-based offering, Adobe Creative Cloud is a hub for making, sharing, and delivering creative work and it is centered around a powerful release of Adobe Creative Suite 6 software, packed with innovation across its industry-defining design, web, video and digital imaging tools.



Adobe Creative Cloud Highlights

Creative Cloud membership provides users with access to download and install every new Adobe CS6 application announced today and two new HTML5 products, Adobe Muse and Adobe Edge Preview.

Creative Cloud integrates Adobe’s creative tablet applications, such as Photoshop Touch, into everyday work - seamlessly synchronizing and storing files in the cloud, for sharing and access on any device.

Creative Cloud members will be able to easily deliver mobile apps to iOS and Android marketplaces and publish, manage and host web sites.

Adobe Creative Cloud members will have access to application upgrades, including new CS point-product features, before they are launched as part of major CS updates, as well as inventive new products and services as they emerge.


Creative Suite 6, Innovative HTML5 Tools Anchor Creative Cloud

CS6 includes landmark releases of industry icons such as Adobe Photoshop® CS6, Adobe InDesign CS6, Adobe Illustrator® CS6, Adobe Dreamweaver CS6, Adobe Premiere Pro CS6, Adobe After Effects CS6, Adobe Flash Professional CS6 and more. With Creative Cloud membership creatives can download and install all of the 14 new Adobe Creative Suite 6 applications.

Creative Cloud membership also includes access to Adobe Muse® and Adobe Edge® Preview, new tools for HTML5 design and development that demonstrate Adobe’s commitment to the latest web standards.


Creative Cloud Links Adobe Touch Apps to CS6 Desktop Tools

Adobe Creative Cloud integrates Adobe’s line of creative touch tools with CS6 desktop applications.

Adobe Touch Apps bring professional-level creativity to tablet devices and address multiple areas of the creative process: image editing; ideation; sketching; mood board creation; website and mobile app prototyping; and the presentation of finished work.

Photoshop Touch and Adobe Ideas have already proved runaway hits on the iPad and Android tablets. Three additional tools, available on Android today, will be coming to iPad soon: Adobe Collage, Adobe Debut, and Adobe Proto.

A new desktop app, Adobe Creative Cloud Connection, enables the syncing, sharing and storing of files across mobile devices and desktop.

Creative Cloud membership includes up to 20GB of cloud storage, with additional storage purchase options coming soon.

Creative Cloud Publishing Services Streamline Website and App Creation

Creative Cloud publishing services will include the ability to easily publish apps, magazines and catalogues to iPad, iPhone and Android devices.

Members have immediate access to Adobe Typekit, the web-based font library that pioneered the use of real fonts on websites, delivering more than 700 typefaces from leading foundries.

New Web hosting capabilities, integrated as part of Adobe Creative Cloud membership, allow users to easily create and host high-impact web sites. The Integration between Adobe Muse, Typekit and the web hosting capabilities power a new simplified workflow for delivering high-impact web sites.


Members Receive Ongoing Delivery of New Applications, Services and Features

Creative Cloud members will receive ongoing updates to Creative Suite applications as well as other new products and services as they emerge. Coming soon to Adobe Creative Cloud are:

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4, the desktop software tool that enables photographic perfection from shoot to finish; the first complete release of Adobe Edge, a ground-breaking HTML5 development tool; and Digital Publishing Suite (Single Edition), the technology behind the delivery of digital magazines on iPad.

Creative Cloud will also include training, support and community features that drive meaningful connections between creatives worldwide.

Learn more about the Adobe Creative Cloud at www.adobe.com/go/creativecloud.




Related:

Adobe Digital School Collection - supporting creativity and digital literacy

Adobe Education Exchange - tips, training, help, resources, lesson ideas, community forum and more for using Adobe products in education.

 

Adobe Education Exchange - resources, tips, links, and forums on using Adobe tools in education

Adobe Digital School Collection - supporting creativity and digital literacy