We teach all the applications below. Normally, we focus on a single application in a session, but can cover more than one if required.
Final Cut Pro, Photoshop and more; training for creatives
We teach all the applications below. Normally, we focus on a single application in a session, but can cover more than one if required.
As the only freelance Apple Certified Trainer in Final Cut Pro in Queensland, Iain Anderson is well placed to deliver Brisbane's best training in this key video editing package. Courses cover the tools, the interface, filters, transitions and effects in our courses, which typically run from one to two days. Depending on how long you have, we can cover just the basics to get you up and running, or cover everything in the official Apple course outline.
We use and recommend the latest FCP 10.5, and Iain's even written a textbook about it — Final Cut Pro: Efficient Editing.
With experience in creating animations over many years (including a short in the Sydney Film Festival and work for Microsoft) we know many of the tricks in producing motion graphics and web animation. Motion is a superb program for production of animation for web, broadcast or film, and offers unique workflow integration with Final Cut Pro X. For example, we can show you how to create a single template file which lets you easily generate every title in your Final Cut Pro project. (For an illustration of how that works, please visit motionally.com.)
If you want to deliver a DVD, we can teach you how to create a dead-simple custom DVD with iDVD or a complex customised product with DVD Studio Pro — if you still own a copy of Final Cut Studio.
Adobe Photoshop is key to many design tasks, and we offer advanced training in its use — including advanced colour correction, best-practice retouching and the latest tools in Photoshop CC. The course we teach was created from scratch to cover:
Adobe InDesign is a very useful tool for page layout, and we teach the basics right through to book publishing level. With experience in producing brochures, books, business cards and other stationery, we can instruct you in best-practice design. We also run the Brisbane InDesign User Group, with free regular meetings held at The Edge.
Adobe Illustrator is a key tool for logo and vector image design with its own key strengths — worth knowing well. We can show you how to use the advanced and less-understood features, such as Symbols and Brushes, plus the depths of the complex yet powerful Layers panel. For a variety of reasons, Illustrator can be a vital tool for anyone who has ever needed to salvage a company logo from a PDF or to fix that typo just before going to print — and we'd be happy to show you why.
Learning to build a website is not the same as learning how to use Dreamweaver. There are many technologies you might choose to employ and a set of base skills you can use to implement them. We teach core and advanced HTML and CSS from scratch, and show you how to adapt any examples you might find on the internet. If you're interested, we can also show you how to present and manage your content with a CMS like Wordpress, or how to make a site optimised for modern smartphones.
In addition to standards-based HTML and CSS, we recognise that Animate (previously Flash) is still an important program for many applications. We can guide you in production of HTML5 animations and banners, as well as larger gallery-style sites incorporating third-party components. We can also help you to use a third-party alternative, Tumult Hype, for iPhone and iPad app creation — we've done it ourselves.
There's a whole lot of hidden power behind iOS, the operating system that runs the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. If you want to know more about it, the apps that come with the system like Mail, Safari and Calendar, we'd be happy to get you started.
As a companion to the Mac version of Keynote, an improvement on Powerpoint, or simple a mobile presentation solution, we can show you how to get the most out of Keynote on the iPad or iPhone. You don't need to take a laptop to present your ideas.
The iPad's best word processor and layout tool is still Pages. We can show you how to import and export Word documents (or PDF if you prefer) so you can make changes while away from your usual desktop computer.
Much more than a replacement for Kindle, iBooks allows you to store PDFs as well as eBooks and navigate quickly through them. We can show you how to send files to iBooks or any other app to enable instant access to the files you need, with or without a network.
When you want to show your content on a tablet, with more interactivity than a website, and you want to optimise the experience for touch, digital publishing is the way to go. Different solutions are best for different users, and we can help you decide between the ones we've used professionally, to create apps with HTML, or make iBooks with iBooks Author.
Even a Photoshop god could do with a few tips on how to give a perfect presentation with Keynote. We'll show you how to create the skeleton of your presentation in seconds, how to use master pages to make it look fantastic and how to use special effects in the right way to enhance your message. If you've never known how to package your ideas so that other people understand them, we can also help you with information design.
If InDesign is just too much, or you need closer compatibility to Microsoft Word, Pages may be the perfect tool for you. We'll show you how to produce simple or complex layouts as well as manage the word-processing power hidden in the palettes. Perfect for anyone who needs a good-looking brochure, flyer or report quickly.
While it's simple enough to get started quite quickly, most of us could manage our photos better with a few Photos pointers. (Photos is the successor to Apple's older iPhoto and Aperture.) We'll show you how to master metadata (data about data) to make finding that special photo very simple.
If you're new to the Mac, we can help to get you started with a concise explanation of the key differences from what you're used to. We will also show you many techniques which can speed up your workflow, and introduce you to some of the useful applications and widgets you may not even know about. Key shortcuts, Spotlight for launching, the Dictionary and using the Dock well are all covered.
