The Mashable Events Board is a great place to find leading conferences in your industry, whether it's advertising, technology, media or public relations. This week, we're highlighting five events that can help move your career forward. If you don't find something that's right for you, check out dozens of event listings featured in our complete listing.
Adobe Photoshop is one of the most widely used software packages in the world. It’s hard to imagine the world without Photoshop, and its remarkable image editing tools have been used in everything from Hollywood blockbusters to Internet memes.
Image via stipan93
As powerful as Photoshop is, it can be a little intimidating. Adobe has done a great job of making the software more accessible to newcomers, but it’s still a complex program. Fortunately, you don’t need to be a professional graphic designer or digital media expert to learn how to use Photoshop.
In today’s post, I’ll show you six places where you can begin your journey to Photoshop mastery, brush up on the fundamentals – pun most definitely intended – and even learn advanced image manipulation techniques for free (or very cheaply).
Nobody knows Photoshop better than Adobe, so your first port of call should be the excellent learning resources on the Adobe site.
Adobe splits its tutorials into varying categories based on skill level. Complete beginners should begin with the overview of what Photoshop can do, before moving onto the intermediate techniques section. Here, you’ll find short video tutorials on how to use a range of Photoshop’s most commonly used features, such as masking, color correction, cropping, vector and shape tools, and working with layers and levels.
Once you’ve gotten a taste of Photoshop’s broad tool set, you can move into project-based tutorials, which walk you through a complete project from start to finish.
BONUS: If you’re looking for a more immersive introduction to Photoshop, check out this free 13-hour introductory course that will cover everything you need to know to get started.
Next on our list of places you can learn Photoshop for free is the Tuts+ network of learning sites.
Although the Tuts+ network does offer premium content for a price, its selection of free tutorials is extensive. Rather than focusing on lengthier, project-based tutorials, Tuts+ tends to offer shorter, bite-sized lessons on specific techniques.
In addition to its content on topics such as brushes, color correction, and typography, Tuts+ also offers several tutorials on the fundamentals of digital imaging, such as image file types and compression – very useful information for the Photoshop novice.
Photoshop Cafe is another excellent resource of free tutorials. Although they push their product range pretty hard throughout the site, there are still plenty of freebies you can take advantage of.
Although some of the tutorials on Photoshop Café are similar to those offered by other sites, the language used is simple enough for beginners to dive right in. Photoshop Café also offers visual guides to potentially complex topics such as alpha channels and automating common tasks using actions.
The video tutorials offered by Lynda.com are among the best I’ve ever used, and are ideal for users who want to take their Photoshop learning seriously.
Lynda.com’s videos are hosted by some of the world’s leading digital artists, and cover an amazingly diverse selection of topics. As you’d expect from one of the best training sites on the web, Lynda.com offers a wide variety of in-depth, project-based tutorials, making it the ideal place for intermediate users to take their skills to the next level.
The site also offers a range of subscription options, the cheapest of which is just $25 per month. You can also choose to pay more for access to features such as project files and offline viewing.
If you’re ready to master some of Photoshop’s most advanced tools and techniques, Digital Tutors is unbeatable.
Aimed primarily at those seeking to launch careers in the entertainment industry, Digital Tutors offers an incredible range of tutorials on how to get the most out of Photoshop. From digital painting to concept art, the variety of topics covered is remarkable.
Digital Tutors also specializes in tutorials covering how Photoshop can serve as just one tool in a wider creative workflow. Many of the site’s videos demonstrate how Photoshop can be used alongside software packages such as After Effects, providing an in-depth look at how versatile – and indispensable – Photoshop can be to creative professionals.
Subscriptions start at $29 per month (which includes access to the entire Digital Tutors catalog of more than 2,000 courses), as well as progress tracking and new training videos added daily.
Udemy has a range of online classes for Photoshop, but the most popular is Manfred Werner’s course.
Totaling 33 hours spread out across 153 individual lectures, this is one of the most comprehensive Photoshop courses you can take pretty much anywhere. Once you’ve paid to take this course (which costs just $19), you’ll have access to it for life, making it an excellent reference resource.
Well, that pretty much does it for this round-up of Photoshop resources. Whether you’re a seasoned Photoshop pro or are just starting out using this amazing software package, hopefully you’ll pick up a few tips and tricks from one of these resources.
Moment.me started life as an app that let users create albums aggregated from pictures and other media posted on social networks, before moving away from that last year to launch a new service building mobile websites for events and another marketing tool for social lead generation. Today, the company is getting acquired in what looks like a play for some of these newer lines of business:… Read More
From Instagram and Hyperlapse to, more recently, an embeddable video player, Facebook has slowly woven video sharing into many of its products and services
But Facebook's new app called Riff, released for iOS and Android on Wednesday, tackles video with a distinct twist.
After users log into the app with their Facebook credentials, creating a video is a four-step deal. You'll be prompted to enter a topic with a hashtag — #AprilFools, #SundayFunday, that sort of thing — or pick one from a list of suggestions. Then, you record a clip up to 20 seconds long. If you review it and are happy with it, you can share it to Facebook. Read more...
More about Video, Facebook, Social Media, Apps Software, and Dev DesignEditor's Note: Today's Modern Marketing Experience product keynote revealed some big news. Chris Lynch, Senior Director of Product Marketing for Oracle Marketing Cloud, provides the details:
Last night at Modern Marketing Experience, we heard about the delicate balancing act facing many marketing leaders today. On one hand, you can become maniacally focused on providing an amazing customer experience for each customer. But because that's often a long-term endeavor, you can put yourself at risk of not hitting your revenue goals this week, month, or quarter.
On the other hand, you can pour all of your focus into the latest revenue number for your CEO or board, but anger a lot of customers in the process as you value quantity over quality in your interactions with customers. It's the classic Wall Street versus Main Street dilemma. And with a few exceptions where a company was architected for top-line growth rather than profitability, most companies of all sizes confront this dichotomy every day.
This morning, at the product keynote of Modern Marketing Experience, the Oracle Marketing Cloud product leadership shared our vision for how the marketer can balance both the revenue requirements they have now, while delivering the individualized customer experience they know will drive their sustained differentiation over time. Rooted in this forward-looking vision actually rests immense practicality: We sought to address a variety of things the marketer can do now that will delight customers and grow revenue now.
Connect Data and Behaviors to Real Customers with the Oracle ID Graph
Today, most customers move between devices and channels with great fluidity. Customers may research a product on their mobile device, but go and complete a purchase on their desktop computer. In fact, 85% of marketers say their biggest challenge to providing seamless cross-channel marketing is customer data that is unavailable or spread across multiple sources.
If marketers take a traditional data warehouse approach of trying to collect each piece of data that gets generated—with consumers generating close to 3 billion terabytes a year—they will drive themselves nuts. Instead, the greater focus should be on letting the data live where it wants to live, and tying it to the right person so you can provide a better experience.
To support that vision, this morning the Oracle Marketing Cloud announced the Oracle ID Graph. A joint technology used across the Oracle Marketing Cloud and Oracle Data Cloud, the Oracle ID Graph pulls together the many IDs across marketing channels and devices that comprise a given person, and enables marketers to tie their interactions to an actionable customer profile. This ID enables the marketer to orchestrate a relevant, personalized experience for each individual across marketing channels.
What's an example of the ID Graph at work? Many customers today prefer to research a potential purchase on one device, but purchase on another. With the Oracle ID Graph, customers are more likely to receive a relevant experience as they move between these devices and connect with the right product or service. For example, if a customer uses a desktop browser to search for flights to New York, an airline marketer can ensure a relevant ad appears for a flight promotion when that same customer switches to their mobile device. This results in a higher conversion rate and more optimized budgets.
Another example of the Oracle Marketing Cloud's ability to bring the offline and online world. Today, around 95% of shopping still occurs offline in the store. With the recent acquisition of Oracle Datalogix, we can bridge that data into our cross-channel orchestration efforts. For example, if a retailer struggles to engage a customer over email, they can append offline purchase data from Oracle Datalogix and use that to target those customers with relevant display advertising that's orchestrated inside Oracle Cross-Channel Marketing for consumers.
Orchestrate Real-Time Experiences
Customer "journeys" are all the rage in digital marketing circles these days. It's a nice idea. You build a set of steps for customers, and they engage with your brand in compelling ways as they move along their journey. The problem is that most of these journey tools don't adapt fast enough to customer behavior. Customers move from channel-to-channel without much predictability, and they pivot and move in different directions. In fact, only 12% of customers today believe their marketing is real-time enough to drive adequate business results.
Today we announced the addition of Rapid Retargeter. Part of Oracle Cross-Channel Marketing for consumers, this allows the marketer to orchestrate a relevant cross-channel interaction when customers, through their actions, reach a certain inflection point. For example, after abandoning an online shopping cart, a customer may receive an email reminder of the cart's contents or see a display advertising campaign to reinforce the marketer's brand during that phase of product consideration. What's different about Rapid Retargeter than traditional retargeting tools is that it offers the marketer both speed and breadth; it helps marketing adapt to the customer experience in minutes, while ensuring that action is coordinated across different marketing channels.
Embrace Openness: Tap Into Marketing Ecosystem As You Need It
When you attend digital marketing conferences these days, there's always a big focus on the sheer volume of technology a marketer must manage. It's almost become passe for speakers to mention the dizzying landscape images from Chiefmartec.com or LUMA Partners.
It's often implied this ecosystem is a bad thing: a bunch of salesy tech vendors looking to dream up standalone market categories and a bunch of analysts looking to tell you how "disruptive" it all is. But this ecosystem holds lots of promise if you can find a way to make it work for you. Part of that starts with boiling it down to its basics.
If you look at most digital marketing technology today, it comes down to three things. They either provide 1) marketing data, 2) marketing applications, or 3) paid media. To help marketers organize this landscape, today we announced the addition of AppCloud Connect. Part of the Oracle Marketing Cloud's ecosystem, AppCloud Connect provides an open set of frameworks and technologies to pull in the data, apps, and media a marketer relies on today.
What can be accomplished with AppCloud Connect? One example we demonstrated on stage today was with web conferencing platform WebEx. AppCloud Connect empowered us to create an app that runs on top of Oracle's Cross-Channel Marketing solution for businesses. Right within the context of a campaign canvas, we can orchestrate WebEx as a key inflection point in the customer lifecycle.
AppCloud Connect, and the virtue of having an OpenPlatform, also allowed us to announce key integrations with other Oracle technologies, such as Oracle Commerce and Oracle WebCenter Sites.
Empower Marketing to Lead the Customer Experience
If marketers want to balance the needs of Main Street and Wall Street, they need to think holistically about the customer experience. Although the Oracle Marketing Cloud wants to adapt faster to customer demands and help customers deliver more integrated marketing, the other thing our open platform approach enables us to do is extend into the larger customer experience. With our open platform, we've already built integrations into Oracle Commerce, Oracle Service Cloud, and Oracle Sales Cloud.
Research indicates that this is where marketers want to go. Indeed, according to Gartner, nearly 90% of marketers believe that delivering a world-class customer experience will be the centerpiece of their long-term differentiation. In those organizations where a Chief Customer Offer or Customer Experience Offer title exists, nearly 60% of these leaders report in through marketing.
Marketers will lead this charge, and we want to provide an open platform to help them do it.
Twitter advertising isn't new, but advertising on users' profiles? That is a first.
The social network is testing out promoted tweets on some profile pages, according to a Re/code report. And if those ads are there at all, you'll find them a few tweets down in a section specially marked, "Suggested by Twitter," so there's little chance of mistaking them for anything else.
While these experimental ads will only be displayed for Twitter users who are logged in, it's possible that could change down the road once the company's recently reported deal with Google — one that Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said would take "several months" before we see anything come of it — officially rolls out. Read more...
More about Twitter, Ads, Promoted Tweets, Advertising, and Social Media
