Creative Cloud for Students – Skills That Are in Demand 

There are many types of applications and software that students can indulge their time in to teach them a variety of skills. However very few may teach you the skills that are in high demand in the 21st century. One such is a collection of products created by a company called Adobe Inc. which gives you an assortment of different design skills and techniques to use within the creative and tech industries.

From web development to video editing, graphic design and photography, to name a few, are all offered in different suites. Because this is a subscription service and may be expensive for the average student, some vendors or suppliers offer these too, for cheaper prices and provide you with the right accreditations such as globally recognized certifications. Click here to read more about this type of qualification and why they are so important. 

Employable Creative Cloud Software Students Should Consider

All of the above fall under one umbrella, namely, the Creative Cloud set of applications. Having these skills will help you enhance not only your skills set, both hard and soft skills, but also give you leverage when it comes time to apply for jobs, as you may have more skills than the next candidate and the chances of you being hired will be higher. 

Employees are always looking for people who have the most creative skills, especially in certain jobs that require specific technical know-how. According to a recent report conducted by the Global Talent Trends 2019, the topmost skills employees are looking for is Creativity: https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/resources/talent-strategy/global-talent-trends-2019 which provides students with the ability to perceive the world around them, as well as tasks and projects in unique and new ways.

Some of the software students should consider include some of the below:

PhotoShop

A graphics editor that was originally developed in the ’80s has become extremely popular, with other companies trying to match its unique capabilities, but have yet to come close. This is one of the many industry standard applications that employees look for in students. It can compose, as well as edit images and has multiple layers in which you can chop and change objects, items, people and landscapes to name a few.

There is an assortment of color modes including CIELAB, CMYK and RGB. With supporting masks and alpha compositing, plus you can save the images in a variety of formats as well. For instance the original editable version of PSD and JPEG or GIF. It is not necessarily used to edit text, there is another program for that which we will look at below. However, you can edit video and 3D graphics with its enhanced features.

This particular application also has sub-categories such as Photoshop Sketch, Mix, Express, Elements and Lightroom, each with its own set of features and capabilities, also known as the “Photoshop Family”.

Illustrator

When looking to work in the creative industry, another important skill students should add to their existing knowledge is that of Illustrator. This is a vector graphics editor, and the latest version was released in 2021. Coupled with Photoshop, the illustrator can help with logo design as well as typesetting in design projects. 

You can either work with two separate windows on your personal computer or use the ‘preview mode’ to work on projects. It has all the necessary tools to create, select and manipulate objects within the program from reshaping to drawing objects, people and various landscapes from scratch, or fill them in using various color palettes provided as well as gradients.

Tools include, painting brushes, pencil tools, pens and all are meticulously created for the user to achieve some of the best works on the market that are being used in various marketing and sales efforts to appeal to the audience. 

InDesign

Another software used within publishing companies especially is InDesign. This is because it is one of the best programs to work on typesetting and desktop publishing. It can be used to design various works such as magazines, posters, books, presentations, eBooks and flyers or brochures. It offers various layout options as well as fonts, and creative ways to insert text into the platform. 

Various creative works can be saved in a variety of relevant digital formats and can also be exported into suitable programs to print and publish the final work. Various academies and resellers offer these courses to students, for example, LC Academy which offers either individual courses or bundled subscription services of different types depending on the skill you want to learn or improve on. They also have bundles you can purchase with the proper licenses to run them. 

 Similar to the other programs mentioned, this can also be integrated with other technologies such as Leopard and can be used on both Mac computers as well as others, as long as you have the space for it, as the designs can take up some space when working on them. 

Premiere Pro

If you are into the editing of videos and film, this is the perfect software for you. With Premiere Pro you can do loads on this time-line based platform and has been used to edit videos for popular movies such as Gone Girl, Deadpool, Monsters, the most recent Terminator movie and more. It supports high-resolution video editing and an assortment of different colors from YUV to RGB.

You can also import or export various formats and it supports several plug-ins as well (additional features). You can work on both 2D and 3D material and when working in the film industry or even on talk shows or news broadcasting companies, you would be responsible for editing and producing high-quality and high-definition videos. 

The above four programs are not even the entirety of what’s on offer to a student when you decide to upskill yourself to work efficiently within any creative industry. These are lucrative things to know if you want o to be ahead of the competition. Always make sure you purchase them for a licensed reseller or supplier and get the legal license for it when you buy it, as many find illegal programs that either don’t work properly or a missing vital features, and besides, it is not an ethical thing to do in any case.