:: Top 5 Pro Resources from my Professional Practise ::

I'll focus here on websites that I do really use as a learning resource in daily basis in professional practice. Not mentioning networking websites e.g. Facebook, news, rich techno & historical/ biographical websites that are in general use for research/educational purposes for the majority of us.

1. Adobe ::

Adobe Systems Incorporated is a computer software company headquartered in USA. The company has historically focused upon the creation of multimedia and creativity software products, with a more-recent foray towards rich Internet application software development.

Adobe's products include:

• Desktop software: Adobe Creative Suite + Adobe Audition
• Server software: Adobe ColdFusion + Adobe LiveCycle
• Technologies: Portable Document Format (PDF) reader/ editor, PostScript, and Flash.
• Web hosted services as Adobe Kuler, Photoshop Express, and Acrobat.com
• Web design programs: Adobe Dreamweaver and Adobe GoLive
• Video editing and special effects: Adobe Premiere and Adobe After Effects

 What Information I've found & How can they be used : 

I think Adobe’s platform is a great choice for any designer/ developer because they can get benefit of  the new design software, updates, related techno/user manual documents & online tutorials:

• To further enrich the user’s experience of these rich applications for more professional work , knowledge tools and techniques that leads to improve/ enhance process skills of their organisation quality and implementing/ production skills.
• Improve designer/developer workflow, fix bugs, updated documentation, etc,
• get support for real-time collaboration between all the products
• applications can work across different operating systems

2. Lynda.com: 

lynda.com's Online Training Library is a provider of online training for creative computer software. As president of lynda.com, it also oversees the publishing of books, CD-ROM and DVD training materials.

Lynda.com is an award-winning provider of educational materials, including instructional books, the Online Training Library, CD- and DVD-based video training, and events for creative designers, instructors, students, and hobbyists.


 What Information I've found & How can they be used :

It provides comprehensive video-based training by authors who are experts in their field ( 676 online training courses) to an international membership of  subscribers. Considering the speed at which technology evolves, the Online Training Library is a great solution for me keeping my skills current.

Whether I need to get trained in digital photography, web design and development, motion graphics, or just need to brush up or master on any other new creative software, I can learn all the software skills any time I want, as many times as I need to gain the competitive edge with the online tutorials.

3. Computer Arts:

Computer Arts is the one-stop shop for professional advice on creating digital art and illustrations.
 It's the world’s best-selling magazine for digital artists and designers, boasts a strong line-up of tutorials every issue, covering everything from manipulating photographs to creating  vector illustrations. 

The website has a gallery, online tutorials, competitions & creative directory.







 What Information I've found & How can they be used : 

Tones of tips and tricks for web design, typography, 3D, animation, motion graphics and multimedia. That keep me up-to-date with the:

• New designs, typefaces and the new approach of imagery
• Creative projects from all over the industry and the world
• Techniques of creative tutorials  
• New interviews with creative design industry leaders& their studio profiles 
• check out the Inspiration Workshop articles
• Read  issues affecting creativity in the commercial world & articles that are focusing on the key business and technology issues that are affecting the design industry
• Video Training by using the free CD that  highlights a lot of great work in video format, along with essential software video training.

4. Creative Cow:

Creative Cow is a support community for media professionals in the film, video, broadcast industry, motion graphics & special FX.

What Information I've found & How can they be used : 

• Forum that is headed by many of the top authors and other professionals to help members getting their tech-problems solved..
• Get training online by free tutorials for professional graphic artists and other dynamic media producers.
• Library of articles, tutorials, and video tutorials related to digital video products like Adobe After Effects, Apple Final Cut that help to get with the latest tips & techniques.
• Podcast tutorials episodes with many video & audio tutorials, tips and tricks that can be exported & carried away anywhere in mobile devices.
  
• Technology news and press releases for film, video, design, software& hardware to be updated with latest news of the media industry world-wide.

 5. Getty Images:

 GettyImages is the leading provider of digital media worldwide, creating and distributing a range of assets from royalty-free stock photography and editorial images to footage, music and multimedia . It is a supplier of stock images for business and consumers with an archive of 70 million still images and illustrations and more than 30,000 hours of stock film footage. It targets three markets; the creative professionals (advertising and graphic design), the media (print and online publishing), and corporate (in-house design, marketing and communication departments).

What Information I've found & How can they be used :

It offers the industry's best photos and broadest collections of imagery and footage ( including award-winning news, sport and entertainment content, plus rare and contemporary archival imagery) that meet the demands of  fully digital publishing industries..

Getty Images can be used as a good resource to get a quick online access to images, footage and music tools to create inspiring work. Also designers can use Catalyst inspiration search engine to get more ideas & be inspired by the suggested keywords. As a customer it will allow me to quickly and effectively search, license and download the industry's broadest, most relevant selection to my digital content.