The CreativePro Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

David Blatner and Theresa Jackson return from Adobe MAX 2025 with stories, insights, and a few surprises. They recap the biggest announcements, their favorite new features, and the feeling of creative inspiration that had nothing to do with Adobe. From AI showing up in nearly every app to Firefly credits, new collaboration tools, and what it all means for creative professionals, they break down the most important takeaways from Adobe's flagship event.

Episode Highlights

• David and Theresa share their experiences at Adobe MAX 2025 —  what makes it both inspiring and overwhelming.
• Why David calls Adobe MAX a "double-edged sword" — part innovation showcase, part marketing machine.
• Theresa's favorite new Lightroom feature: AI-powered photo culling.
• Their cautiously optimistic thoughts about Firefly Boards and Creative Cloud Projects.
• An honest conversation about AI credits, ethics, and the future of Adobe's business model.
• What tools and gadgets inspired their friends at MAX — from painting software to portable lighting.
• The unexpected creative tip from Jason Hoppe that had everyone laughing (and rethinking their Halloween jack-o'-lanterns).
• How attending events like Adobe MAX and CreativePro Week builds real creative community.

Links & Resources

• Adobe MAX Sneaks 2025
• Escape Motions: Rebelle Painting Software
• Harlowe Lights
• Jason Hoppe's Pumpkin Carving - https://www.youtube.com/@JasonHoppe 
• The InDesign Conference 2025, December 9–12
• The Presentation Design Conference 2026, February 17–20
• ​​CreativePro Week 2026, Nashville, June 29–July 3
• Next Office Hours, Friday, December 19, at 3PM ET

During Adobe MAX, Canva dropped a bombshell announcement: the entire Affinity suite—Affinity Photo, Designer, and Publisher—would be free forever. In this episode, David Blatner, Theresa Jackson, and Mike Rankin share their reactions to the news and unpack what it means for creative professionals.

They discuss how Canva's move shakes up the design software landscape and whether Affinity can ever rival Adobe's Creative Cloud. The team also explores why this announcement might be good news for everyone, from professional designers to the next generation of creatives.

Episode Highlights

• Canva's surprise move announced during Adobe MAX
• Why David says "free" doesn't necessarily mean "professional-grade"
• Theresa's take on Adobe's shifting focus toward hobbyists
• Mike's look at Affinity's strengths (and key limitations)
• The gap between Adobe's "everyone" tools and enterprise solutions
• How Affinity compares for pros: what's missing and what's impressive
• The bigger picture: education, accessibility, and competition in creative software

Resources

• Canva's official announcement: Affinity now free forever
• Affinity Suite overview (Photo, Designer, Publisher)
• Adobe MAX on demand sessions
• CreativePro InDesign Conference

 

Topics:

• The INDDC format: good and bad
• Interview with Venngage CEO Eugene Woo
• Obscure Feature: Reset Preferences on Quit

Links:

Cloud Docs:

• Collaborating Using Adobe Cloud Documents
• Creative Cloud Storage: Where Does It Go?
• Working with Adobe Cloud Documents
• Anne-Marie's Cloud Docs video "for Design Geeks" on LinkedIn Learning
• The endgame… collaborative editing, like the current Photoshop beta

Venngage: AI powered design at your fingertips

Resetting Preferences

A very special episode, recorded in front of a live audience at The InDesign Conference 2016! Scroll down to see a couple pictures.

In this episode:

• News and Updates:
  • Quick history lesson about our podcast
  • InDesign CC 2017 released last week
  • Fun times at AdobeMAX!
  • InDesign Magazine Nov. 2016 is magical (literally) and comes with videos!
  • Registration open for the 2017 InDesign Conference, May 22-25, part of CreativePro Week
• Interview with Mohammed Javed Ali, InDesign product manager
• Our top 10 OIFOTW's (Obscure InDesign Features) from episodes 3 to 237
• And this episode's Obscure InDesign Feature of the Week: Alpha Channel

News and special offers from our sponsors:

>> Teacup Software is a consulting firm and a vendor of simple, elegant, and unobtrusive plug-ins for InDesign, including BarCodeMaker, PatternMaker (developed with our own David Blatner), and DataLinker, for linking to databases. They've recently updated their plugins to support InDesign CC 2017, too. Support your local InDesign developer!

Links mentioned in this podcast:

• InDesign CC 2017: New features, Keeping older versions, Updated ID New Features Guide
• CreativePro Week 2017
• Where does Javed Ali and the rest of the team work? In Noida, Delhi, and Gurgaon
• Join the InDesign prerelease team
• Here are the OIFsOTW we talked about!
  1. Non-joiner
  2. Flush space
  3. Barbell
  4. Magnet
  5. Float
  6. Choke
  7. Straight Hash
  8. Folder Zero
  9. Butt Cap
  10. Jumbo
• This episode's OIFOTW: Alpha Channel

Here are a couple pictures from The InDesign Conference 2016:

Anne-Marie and David welcoming the crowd to The InDesign Conference 2016 Anurag Wahi and Javed Ali, InDesign product managers/engineers, answering questions during the Ask Adobe Anything session

In this episode:

• Latest news:
  • Anne-Marie and David speaking at AdobeMAX 2016
  • The InDesign Conference 2016 is next week!
  • InDesign Magazine Nov. 2016 is magical (literally)
• How-to's and gotchas when changing page sizes of a layout
• Interview with the awesome (and funny) Claudia McCue
• Obscure InDesign Feature of the Week: Rainbow

 

News and special offers from our sponsors:
>> Certitec, an Adobe Authorized Training Centre in the UK, is a premiere provider of Adobe InDesign, Adobe Animate (née Flash) and Adobe AEM training, as well as many other software programs. Their students are achieving a 98% pass rate on all Adobe Certified Associate exams, so you know the instructors are the best! Certitec hold classes in Cardiff, London, or Bristol. Follow them on Twitter at @Certitec and keep up with their Facebook page. Enjoy a 20% discount on any class in London or Cardiff you mention InDesignSecrets while booking the class (on the phone or at their site).

Links mentioned in this podcast:

• InDesign Conference 2016: Washington DC, November 7–9
• Resizing Pages:
  • Using the Page Tool
  • When the Document Size Won't Change
  • Using the Pages panel to change page size
  • Quick Resize, a useful script from ID-extras.com
• All about Liquid Layout in InDesign: read this and this
• Claudia McCue info and resources:
  • Here's Claudia's personal blog and her training company's site
  • A list of all of Claudia's Lynda.com video courses
  • Learning Print Production, her newest Lynda.com course
  • New Rules for Printing, her cover story from InDesign Magazine
  • How to do the Southern Double-click
• Rainbow strokes!

In this episode:

• Latest news:
  • The InDesign Conference 2016 is just weeks away! New content, TRUMATCH giveaway
  • InDesign Magazine Sept 2016: all about teaching InDesign
  • InDesign Magazine Oct. 2016: InDesign Nightmares!
• We each describe 3 of our favorite free InDesign scripts
• Obscure InDesign Feature of the Week: Satin
• The QUIZZLER answer and winner! She had a 1 out of 1 chance of winning ;-)

News and special offers from our sponsors:
>> Certitec, an Adobe Authorized Training Centre in the UK, is a premiere provider of Adobe InDesign, Adobe Animate (née Flash) and Adobe AEM training, as well as many other software programs. Their students are achieving a 98% pass rate on all Adobe Certified Associate exams, so you know the instructors are the best! Certitec hold classes in Cardiff, London, or Bristol. Follow them on Twitter at @Certitec and keep up with their Facebook page. Enjoy a 20% discount on any class in London or Cardiff you mention InDesignSecrets while booking the class (on the phone or at their site).

QUIZZLER ANSWER and WINNER: In podcast 235, we asked listeners to email us locations in InDesign where the command "Place" appears, other than File > Place. We were looking for Library panel menu, right-click menu on images in CC Library, and the obscure button lower right on the Media panel, Place Video or Audio file. Only one person submitted an answer, and none of these were included in her email. But she wins an InDesignSecrets Keyboard Shortcut poster anyway!    Links mentioned in this podcast:

• InDesign Conference 2016: Washington DC, November 7–9
• Trish Witkowski's Fold of the Week video
• All about the TRUMATCH swatchbook
• InDesign Magazine, September issue, on "Teaching InDesign"
• Erica Gamet's "InDesign Script-o-Pedia"
• Not sure how to install a script in InDesign? It's easy. Read this and you might like this too.
• Scripts to try (all links lead to blog posts with download links):
  • The scripts that come with InDesign
  • StyLighter highlights text where styles are used
  • PerfectPrepText converts local formatting to character styles
  • RePlace lets you switch pages or artboards of placed files
  • Number Adjuster applies math to live numbers in your layout
  • Calendar Wizard creates calendar layouts from your settings in a dialog box
  • Swimmer replaces words with images in your layout

In this episode:

• Latest news:
  • InDesign CC 2015.4 POINT 1 update ... oy the naming
  • The InDesign Conference 2016 is coming soon — November!
  • PePcon 2016 videos and CreativePro Conf 2016 videos are up
  • InDesign Magazine Script-o-Pedia
• All about InDesign's new GPU feature
• Interview with Brian Wood, InDesign Guru
• Obscure InDesign Feature of the Week: Zoom Setting
• The QUIZZLER returns!
   

News and special offers from our sponsors:

>> Teacup Software is a consulting firm and a vendor of simple, elegant, and unobtrusive plug-ins for InDesign, including BarCodeMaker, PatternMaker (developed with our own David Blatner), and DataLinker, for linking to databases. Teacup moved to a subscription-based pricing model earlier this year. You can take 15% off the first year of any subscription when you enter the code IDSECRETS15. Hurry, this offer will end in a few weeks.

QUIZZLER: Listen to the podcast for the Quizzler, a simple question about InDesign that you can answer with a little searching. When you find the answer, email it to us at info at indesignsecrets.com with QUIZZLER in the Subject line (not in a comment here!). We'll choose a winner from all the correct answers we've received by SEPTEMBER 20. Winner will be notified by email and announced in the next podcast, and we'll send the prize to them too!   Links mentioned in this podcast:

• InDesign Conference 2016: Washington DC, November 7–9
• All about the new GPU feature in InDesign (what is OpenGL?)
• Adobe Muse Classroom in a Book (by Brian Wood)
• Brian is doing a session and a 1/2-day workshop at The InDesign Conference!
• Creating Acrobat scripts with Javascript?
  • Javascript Developer Guide for Acrobat (circa 2006) PDF, 200+ pages!
  • Online documentation for scripting Acrobat X 

The mysterious Zoom Setting:

In this episode:

• Latest news:
  • InDesign CC 2015.4 update (and InCopy CC 2015.4 too!)
  • Register for CreativePro Conference and The InDesign Conference
  • June 2016 InDesign Magazine: Photography & InDesign
  • July 2016 InDesign Magazine: Fonts and Typography
• PePcon Recap! And we each share one tip we learned at the show
• A number of tips to know about (Auto-) Numbered Lists
• Obscure InDesign Feature of the Week: Dimensions Include Stroke Weight

News and special offers from our sponsors:

>> Certitec, an Adobe Authorized Training Centre in the UK, is a premiere provider of Adobe InDesign, Adobe Animate (née Flash) and Adobe AEM training, as well as many other software programs. Two of their trainers have been voted in as the top 10 trainers in the world!  Marek Mularcyk and Martin Prehiniak have achieved this over the last 12 months and accredited by Metrics that Matter. Certitec hold classes in Cardiff, London, or Bristol. Enjoy a 20% discount on any class in London or Cardiff when you mention InDesignSecrets while booking the class (on the phone or at their site).

Links mentioned in this podcast:

• CreativePro 2016: The Conference for Photoshop and Illustrator Users, July 11-13, Minneapolis MN
• InDesign Conference 2016: Washington DC, November 7–9
• Steve Werner's in-depth article on the InDesign CC 2015.4 release 
• Chad's post about the InCopy CC 2015.4 release
• Our PePcon Tips (one each!)
  • Watch AM's 10 Bridge Tips videos (drag folder onto Bridge to view contents)
  • Unzip Word.docx file to access embedded images: Video and Article
• Download the Template Essentials: Bullets and Numbering file (Premium members)
• Various posts about Autonumbered lists:
  • Multi-level autonumbering
  • Right-align numbers
  • Restart numbering
  • Formatting numbers
  • Figure numbering
  • Add numbers to running headers
  • Fixing local formatting problems
  • More, even more crazy tips:
    • Use autonumbered lists for page numbers
    • Sequential numbering inside paragraphs
    • Numbering paragraphs on the side
    • Making numbered tickets

 

In this episode:

• Latest news:
  • Creative Cloud Libraries get a welcome update
  • Register for CreativePro Conference and The InDesign Conference
  • May 2016 InDesign Magazine is a color (management) deep dive
  • June 2016 InDesign Magazine: Photography & InDesign
• Making the UI (User Interface) your own
• Obscure InDesign Feature of the Week: Keep with Next Row
   

News and special offers from our sponsors:

>> Certitec, an Adobe Authorized Training Centre in the UK, is a premiere provider of Adobe InDesign, Adobe Animate (née Flash) and Adobe AEM training, as well as many other software programs. Their students are achieving a 98% pass rate on all Adobe Certified Associate exams, so you know the instructors are the best! Certitec hold classes in Cardiff, London, or Bristol. Follow them on Twitter at @Certitec and keep up with their Facebook page. Enjoy a 20% discount on any class in London or Cardiff you mention InDesignSecrets while booking the class (on the phone or at their site).

 

Links mentioned in this podcast:

• CreativePro 2016: The Conference for Photoshop and Illustrator Users, July 11-13, Minneapolis MN
• InDesign Conference 2016: Washington DC, November 7–9
• Here's David's cover story on InDesign Color Management from the May 2016 InDesign Magazine (premium members can read magazine stories on our site) 
• Everything you want to know about CC Libraries (premium content)
• Making the InDesign UI your own:
  • Turning off the Welcome screen
  • Learn to love the Application Frame
  • Move the Control Panel to the bottom
  • Changing panels to toolbars in InCopy
• Mike Rankin talked about Keep with Next Row here! (see tip #5) 

In this episode:

• Latest news:
  • PePcon's community site, PePcon Connect, is live
  • Register for PePcon, CreativePro Conference, InDesign Conference
  • April 2016 InDesign Magazine: The White Space Issue
  • May 2016 InDesign Magazine is a color (management) deep dive!
• Inside Mike Riordan's head (interview with our Editor-in-Chief!)
• All About Alternative Glyphs
• Obscure InDesign Feature of the Week: Hide Column

News and special offers from our sponsors:

>> Certitec, an Adobe Authorized Training Centre in the UK, is a premiere provider of Adobe InDesign, Adobe Animate (née Flash) and Adobe AEM training, as well as many other software programs. Their students are achieving a 98% pass rate on all Adobe Certified Associate exams, so you know the instructors are the best! Certitec hold classes in Cardiff, London, or Bristol. Follow them on Twitter at @Certitec and keep up with their Facebook page. Enjoy a 20% discount on any class in London or Cardiff you mention InDesignSecrets while booking the class (on the phone or at their site).

Links mentioned in this podcast:

• Time for PePcon 2016! Sign up now and we'll see you in San Diego in June (also home of the Creative Developers Summit)
• CreativePro 2016: The Conference for Photoshop and Illustrator Users, July 11-13, Minneapolis MN
• InDesign Conference 2016: Washington DC, November 7–9
• David's new InDesign Insider: Color Management course at Lynda.com
• Posts on Alternative Glyphs you'll find useful
  • Glyphs Panel tip of the week
  • Weird bug with replacing fractions
  • Which fonts have fractions built in?
  • Which fonts ship with InDesign?
• Tweaking your Link Panel Options