Lake County Gazette

Cook Memorial Public Library District is offering free access to Adobe Creative Cloud on designated library computers for patrons with a library card. The service provides access to over 20 Adobe programs, including Photoshop, Lightroom, Premiere Pro, InDesign, and Acrobat. These applications are available on both PC and iMac computers at the Cook Park and Aspen Drive library locations.

Typically, Adobe Creative Cloud requires a paid subscription, but library cardholders can use the full suite of programs in the Digital Studio at no cost. Patrons are encouraged to bring a USB flash drive or use cloud storage options such as Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, or DropBox to save their work.

The library’s subscription covers the entire collection of Adobe apps. Some Adobe products are also available for free through the basic Creative Cloud membership, including Adobe Scan, Acrobat Reader, Photoshop Express, and Lightroom Mobile.

"Photoshop is an icon among Adobe programs – so popular the name itself has become a verb! It’s a powerhouse program that allows you to edit and manipulate photos or create a picture from your imagination using generative AI. Photoshop Express is a lighter, web-based version of the application that’s great for beginners and makes editing images on the go a breeze."

"Lightroom Classic is a desktop-focused photo editing program with a comprehensive suite of features for color correction, detail enhancement, and creative effects. You can create presets, add keywords for easy search, and organize photos on your computer in ready-to-print formats. Lightroom is the newer cloud-based photo program that works across desktop, mobile, and web, with automatic file backup to the cloud and intelligent search capabilities."

"Premiere Pro is an industry standard video and film editing app. You can use it to join clips, trim footage, create transitions, and add graphics and audio to your project. For designers and animators, Premiere Pro is where you’ll build and perfect your demo reel and produce professional-quality videos for a variety of purposes, from film projects to social media content."

"InDesign is a page layout and design tool that’s equipped to help you create brochures, PDFs, magazines, digital presentations, interactive documents, and more! It excels at producing professional quality documents for publishing and works equally well for print and digital purposes."

"Acrobat is the app for viewing and editing PDF files. PDFs have become standard format for file sharing and Adobe invented them! There are various versions of Acrobat for different devices. Reader lets you view PDF files. Acrobat Pro lets you create and convert files to the PDF format."

To support users learning these tools, Cook Memorial Public Library District offers instructional books in its eTech nonfiction collection by searching "Adobe" on its homepage. Additionally, through its partnership with Udemy (https://link.gale.com/apps/udemy_library_link), patrons have access to free courses covering various Adobe programs (https://www.udemy.com/topic/photoshop_top_free_courses;https://www.udemy.com/courses). Online resources such as official tutorials (https://www.adobe.com/learn/photoshop;https://www.adobe.com/learn/acrobat;https://www.adobe.com/learn/express) as well as YouTube channels (https://www.youtube.com/@AdobeCreativeCloud;https://www.youtube.com/@GarethDavidStudio/playlists;https://www.youtube.com/playlist/adobecreativesuite) are also recommended.