Adobe Newbie - How do I get started?!

[#1]

Hi Everyone,

Hope you're staying safe and doing well! For the longest, I've subscribed to Adobe but have been hesitant to fully dive into tutorials to explore everything I want to design. Ironically, for the longest, I've used PowerPoint for creative projects out of familiarity (see attached for some examples of my work). I've known for sometime that eventually I'd walk across the metaphorical stage and graduate from Office tools to a more professional quality with different functionality... and today's the day I reach out and grab that diploma. Does anyone have any recommendations on how I could get started? I'm talking absolute basics, I still don't understand what is the difference between Photoshop and Illustrator; Premiere Pro and After Effects; InDesign and anything else. Please help... there's an invitation to my virtual grad party in it for you (designed on [insert Adobe App here that I still don't know] of course).

[#2]

Go to the forum for each program and ask the users... please start at https://community.adobe.com/

[#3]

• Lightroom is a digital darkroom.  Use it to manage and adjust photos from your digital cameras.
• Photoshop is mainly for raster images, retouching photos, making web graphics like JPG, PNG, animated GIF.
• Illustrator is for vector graphics, shapes, logos, puppets, icons, brand name text.
• InDesign is for printed brochures, product packaging, business cards, book covers, newspaper column layouts, eBooks.
• Premier Pro is advanced video editing software.
• After Effects is post production video software for 2D motion graphics, titles and special effects. Can be used alone or with Character Animator to bring life to static Illustrator drawn puppets.

Pick one software like Photoshop.  Go to the Help Menu and click on F1 for online help or Tutorials.  Learn the basics first and experiment.  Practice, practice, practice.  Repeat.

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/tutorials.html

Have fun!

[#4]

That was EXTREMELY helpful Nancy, thank you! I was aiming to design graphics for digital presentations, social media/instagram stories (framed in a custom layout with video embedded). Sounds like I should start with photoshop and premier pro.

[#5]

Photoshop is a good place to start.  If you get stuck on anything, post specific questions in the product forum. 

https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop/bd-p/photoshop

https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro/bd-p/premiere-pro

[#6]

The Photoshop forum is very friendly and helpful. Always mention your PS and OS version when posing questions.

I suggest you concentrate on Photoshop to begin with. The Photography Plan incluedes Photoshop (and upgrades as they become available), Lightroom and 20GB of storage for around $10 a month.