Adobe Offers More Than Great Software
Every day, new media products come online providing students and teachers different tools to excel. When paper and pencils were introduced, these tools were a breakthrough in technology. Now, today’s schools incorporate computers and technology, yet it can be difficult to keep up with all the changes. Young minds absorb new media technology as if they were born with the skills. Teachers are expected to understand, and incorporate e-Learning solutions in various lesson plans, but trying to find the time for training, teaching and developing material is….well, time consuming!

Adobe’s Digital School Collection offers a cornucopia of teacher resources to incorporate digital media into daily classroom curriculum. Adobe listens to administrative staff, students, parents and teachers, integrating their requests to develop numerous online activities, lessons, projects and tutorial services.

The Adobe Digital School Collection includes the following software product line:

• Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 – edits, enhances, crops, organizes and share images
• Adobe Premeire Elements 8 – edit and share video
• Adobe Soundbooth CS4 – edit audio, prepare podcasts, customize music, add sound effects
• Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro – simplifies creating and sharing documents, graphs, media rich lessons, assignments and project material
• Adobe Contribute CS4 – add content, images, edit web content

What’s Offered in the Collection
Let’s say you want to develop a lesson plan, or project that incorporates digital storytelling using storyboard techniques, video clips, digital photography, podcasting and publishing the finished results on a website.  Where do you begin?  What lesson strand are you following?  Is this project to be cross curriculum and collaborated by teamwork, shared by exporting to other classes or schools, or constructed on different computers? Whether teaching elementary school subjects, middle school history or high school media classes Adobe offers some great resources.

First, the full product line (Adobe Photoshop Elements 8, Premiere Elements 9, Soundbooth CS4, Acrobat 9 Pro, Contribute CS4) is $149 for volume licensing, a definite savings over purchasing individual software programs.   Second, there are numerous, detailed lesson plans prepared by teachers and specialists that demonstrate how to use these programs, as well as incorporation into classroom curriculum.  Additional content is provided in Photoshop Elements 8 and Premiere Elements 9. Students (and teachers) learn by collaborating, sharing knowledge, teamwork, problem solving and discussion.

Here are samples of prepared lesson plans at in math, science, language arts, history/social studies, visual and performing arts at the Adobe Teacher Resources:

• Geometric Concepts (ages 8-10)
• Patterns (ages 6-8)
• Dolch Word Practice (ages 5-7)
• Volcano Eruption (ages 9-13)
• Visual Dictionary (ages 11-17)
• Pioneers of Music (ages 11-17)
• A Person in Time Online (ages 11-17)

Each lesson provides supporting guides (U.S. and British version), sample final project, media assets or website templates.

And There’s More Free Support
Now, you’ve found a lesson plan that you can incorporate, or follow to use for a similar project. Yet, what if additional assistance is required? No problem.
Click on K-12 Teachers and Administrators to explore online events, cross curricular resources (digital storytelling, teacher resources, workshops, e-portfolios and assessments). Adobe TV offers basic to advanced lessons for free. Many shows are offered especially for Adobe Digital School Collection. Click on Channels to view a variety of tutorials.

The Adobe Education Leaders blog shares thoughts and advice from Adobe Education Leaders.

And if that’s not enough, students and teachers can access e-portfolio workshops and support from Atomic Learning . For podcasting, Adobe has collaborated with Podbean.com for free podcasting.

As I keep perusing Adobe’s Digital School Collection, resources, I keep uncovering additional online, or pdf material. When purchasing the Digital School Collection, schools and teachers receive a Teacher Resource CD highlighting many of these resources:

• Lesson Plans
• Digital Portfolio
• Technical Guides
• Tips and Tricks
• Image and Video Gallery
• Teaching Process and Assessment

Netbooks are supported by Photoshop Elements 8, and Adobe is working on developing additional application to support netbooks.

To reach 21st century students, teachers have to apply 21st skills. And Adobe delivers these skills and more.  No teacher left behind is Adobe’s motto.

System Requirements: Windows XP; check individual software programs for additional system requirements
Contact: Adobe Education K-12
Cost: Volume licensing at $149 US.

Visual Defects in Images Can Ruin A Story
What do you do with images that show scratches, dust, spots, pimples, wrinkles, or even the dreaded ex. Get Alien Skin’s Image Doctor 2.0. This Photoshop plug-in provides a set of five cool filters that clean up visual defects in digital images.

Image Doctor 2.0 includes:

Improvements to Image Doctor 2.0 provide:

Clean & Easy Interface
Each Image Doctor 2.0 filter opens with a clean, easy-to-use interface that provides intuitive defaults and the power of custom adjustments.  Select “Settings” tab, and this interface offers a selection of factory default output settings. Custom settings can be saved and reused that enhance efficiency. Choose the “Basic” tab on the user interface to adjust sliding default and custom settings.

Image Quality
To test Image Dr image quality, test images were selected from photos taken with a Nikon D200 (10 MP sensor). The selected images were processed using both Photoshop CS4 and the Image Dr filters. The original and “Doctored” images are presented below.

Image Doctor – Smart Fill

Crop of original image

Using Smart Fill filter, red buoy is removed

Using Smart Filter a second time cleans up the water and the hillside

Removing the buoy presents several backgrounds – water, rock wall, buildings along the water, and the trees. As recommended in the user manual, the buoy was replaced in four steps. Each step selected a section of the buoy with a different background. The manual does an excellent job of explaining this process. Manipulating the adjacent image required the “Manual–complex background” from the Factory Settings on the Settings tab. By selecting one of the “Manual” Factory settings, the user can select the area of the image that would be used in to replace the selected section of the image. For some images, using the Smart Fill Filter a second time can significantly improve the result.

For this image, none of the “Auto” Factory settings gave acceptable results. The “Auto” settings worked better with a consistent background.

As shown above, Smart Fill filter works great with trees and foliage, and does an acceptable job with the buildings in the background. However, this filter did a fair job of replacing water. The Smart Fill filter appears to have difficulty creating the inherent patterns. In water, typically ripples, waves have a pattern that look artificial when broken.

Image Doctor – Blemish Concealer

Crop of original photo

Image using both Skin Softener and Blemish Concealer

Blemish Concealer zapped the blemish over the right eye, and reduced the red coloring on the nose. Skin Softener softened and smoothed the smile lines. Now the subject is happy. As show above the combination of Skin Softener and Blemish Concealer work wonders on the young, and the young at heart.

Image Doctor – Dust and Scratch Remover
Not only can you remove dust and scratches, but the Dust and Scratch Remover filter remove offending lines, trees, branches that in photos, seem to “grow” out of people’s heads. Select the Photoshop lasso tool and then remove as a group using the “Remove object – large features” Factory Setting on the Settings tab. As explained in the User Manual, the “Random Seed” button on the Basic tab should be clicked several time to get the replaced area to look good. Power lines, barbed wire fences, or other objects can be removed successfully.

Alien Skin offers a free download at Product Downloads , and video tutorials can be viewed at Alien Skin Tutorials.

System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4 with PowerPC G5 or Intel processor (Adobe Photoshop CS2 9.0.2; Photoshop Elements 4.0.1; Adobe Photoshop Elements 5; Fireworks CS3); Windows XP with Intel Pentium 4 processor (Adobe Photoshop CS2 9.0.2; Photoshop Elements 4.0; Phtoshop Elements 5; Fireworks CS3; Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2)
Contact: www.alienskin.com
Cost: $199

Grades: Upper middle school, high school, college, digital photography, photojournalism, media, marketing, nonprofits

Improving Digital Images
You have a digital camera, you’re snapping lots of pictures, but you’re not happy with the results. Someone took your Kodachrome away. O.k., lets be honest. You donated your Kodachrome and the remaining film after getting hooked on shooting digital. Yet, now you want that film look back without losing the convenience of digital. Alien Skin’s Exposure 2.0 plug-in for Adobe Photoshop products is one tool that simulates film quality in digital images.

And in today’s media classes, students may not realize the difference in quality from film to digital quality images. Using Exposure v2.0 will broaden their experience by contrasting different image quality, and improve their photo skills.

Exposure v.1.0 included presets for popular slide and print films from Kodak and Fuji, including Kodachrome and Fuji’s Provia. Exposure v2.0 adds presets for available films, such as Kodak Porta 160NC and VC; Kodak Ultra Color 100; Fuji Pro; Fuji Reala; and Polaroid. Alien Skin also obtained a few rolls of discontinued films to create presets for Agfa Scala, Fuji Velvia 50, and Polaroid Polapan. Exposure v2.0  incorporates a new grain generator with more grain controls, special effects presets, and an improved user interface.

Clean & Easy Interface
With Exposure v2.0, both the color film and black&white film exposure filters open into a clean, easy-to-use interface that provides intuitive defaults, and the power of custom adjustments. By selecting the “Settings” tab, this interface provides a selection of more than 200 factory preset settings. Custom settings can be saved and reused enhancing efficiency. Default and custom settings can be adjusted with sliders after selecting one of the four adjustment tabs: color, tone, focus or grain on the color film user interface. The black and white film user interface adds an infrared (IR) adjustment tab.

Images
To illustrate the film effects provided by Exposure, an image was selected from photos taken with a Nikon D200 (10 MP sensor). The selected image was processed in Photoshop CS4 using Exposure factory presets. Presented below are 100% crops of the original and processed images.

100% crop of the original photo

100% crop of original photo with Exposure Kodachrome 25

100% crop of the photo after processing with Exposure’s Fuji Reala preset.

100% crop of photo after processing with Exposure's Fuji Velvia 50

100% crop of photo after processing with Exposure’s Fuji Velvia 50 preset with the push processing slider set to +1.

The above examples are just a small sample of over 200 presets available to create the right image mood, or tone. If you have a quality digital image, but the image is well… too digital for your story or portfolio, consider applying Alien Skin’s Exposure v2.0 plug-in to regain that film quality look. Exposure v2.0 can be applied to Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 and Photoshop CS4, but is not available for Lightroom 2 or Aperture. Exposure 2.0 may also be a plug-in for Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo XI.

Alien Skin offers a free download at Product Downloads , and video tutorials can be viewed at Alien Skin Tutorials.

System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4 with PowerPC or Intel processor (Adobe Photoshop CS2 9.0.2; Photoshop Elements 4.0.1; Fireworks CS3); Windows XP with Pentium 4 processor (Adobe Photoshop CS2; Photoshop Elements 4.0; Fireworks CS3; Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo XI)
Contact: www.alienskin.com
Cost: $249; $149 for upgrades

Adobe just updated their Digital School Collection for K-12 Classrooms.

The Digital School Collection bundle  “includes the new Adobe® Photoshop® Elements 8 and Adobe Premiere® Elements 8 for Windows® which offer new photo, video and podcasting capabilities that enable students to creatively express ideas through classroom projects. Along with other tools in the collection – Adobe Contribute® CS4, Adobe Acrobat® 9 Pro and Adobe Soundbooth® CS4 – educators can inspire students to develop the problem solving, critical thinking, digital literacy and collaboration skills needed to succeed beyond the classroom and in the future workforce. Additionally, for the first time, Adobe takes advantage of new technologies used in 21st century classrooms by offering netbook compatibility support for Photoshop Elements 8 (Windows) and Adobe Photoshop Elements for the Mac platform.”

Bob Regan, director of worldwide K-12 for Adobe, points out that Adobe’s goals are to ensure K-12 students graduate with competitive skills in the global workforce. Adobe understands the challenges budget-constraint districts face each day.

“We think it’s imperative to deliver affordable solutions like the Digital School Collection that not only inspire students to stay connected to their classroom, but also encourage 21st century and project-based learning.”

Keeping Students And Teachers Equipped With The Right Tools
Free Teacher Resource DVDs are provided incorporating K-12 lesson plans, creative ideas and quick tutorials for implement projects. Find these free teaching resources online at www.adobe.com/education/instruction/adsc .

“Additionally, Adobe and Knowledge Network Solutions Inc. (KNS) together offer professional development courses that help teachers use the new version of Adobe Digital School Collection across academic disciplines.”

PodBean – Free Podcasting Site
Adobe offers Podbean, a free podcasting site on the Adobe website that allows 21st century classrooms to provide syndication publishing for audio/video content distribution.

“With Acrobat 9 Pro, Contribute CS4 and Soundbooth CS4, students have the the ability to integrate multimedia design, video, audio, animation and Web design into projects and ePortfolios that build necessary technology and critical thinking skills for future success.”

Education Pricing Information (US$)
The Adobe Digital School Collection will be available on Oct. 1, 2009.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 (Win): $69
Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 (Mac): $69
Adobe Premiere Elements 8 (Win): $69
Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 & Adobe Premiere Elements 8 (Win): $119
Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 & Adobe Premiere Elements 8 (Win) K-12 Student Licensing: $99
Adobe Digital School Collection (Win) Volume Licensing only: $149

Individual pricing information can be found at: Adobe Education Pricing.

Volume licensing information is available at: Adobe Education Licensing.

System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4; Windows XP; Intel or 1.6 GHz processor; 1 GB RAM; 2 GB Hard drive space; 1024 X 576 Monitor; DVD-ROM drive; Internet connection (Firefox 1.5, Explorer 6)
Contact: Adobe.com

Subject Matter: Photoshop solutions and offerings
Grades: Middle School to College, Universities, Administrative, Media Specialists

Collection of Partners and Free Solutions
Adobe’s has collaborated with partners and companies to develop a one-stop Photoshop shopping site. Some offerings are free, and other material require a fee. Need to find the most recent events, workshop, user groups or update on learning material? Read more about their new offering, Photoshop Marketplace.

“Photoshop Marketplace to its customers, connecting them directly to the Photoshop community and helping extend the value of their Adobe software purchase. Photoshop Marketplace is a centralized hub on Adobe.com where visitors can find the most up-to-date listing of Photoshop resources including products, tools, services, communities and events.

Since its introduction to partners and community leaders in April 2009, more than 100 companies and organizations have applied to Photoshop Marketplace and submitted over 300 individual offerings. Users can now search and browse this comprehensive collection to find specific plug-ins, locate local Photoshop workshops, events, or user groups or discover new learning materials. The site is community driven with all content provided by members of the Photoshop community.

Adobe encourages visitors to participate in the community by rating, reviewing and commenting on the various resources. Users have the ability to email information on their favorite products, communities and services to others directly from the site and receive updates via RSS feeds as Photoshop Marketplace continues to evolve and grow.

Photoshop Marketplace is available now at Adobe Photoshop Marketplace. Additional information on submitting Photoshop-related solutions can be found at Photoshop Related Solutions.

Photoshop Marketplace is available to users worldwide, in English only.

System Requirements:Mac OS X, Windows; Web based browser
Contact:Adobe.com
Cost:From Free to various charges for different offerings