This course has two connected goals. First, it prepares you for the Adobe Certified Professional in Visual Design Using Adobe Photoshop credential — an industry-recognized certification issued by Certiport on behalf of Adobe. Second, it takes you past the exam — through nine additional weeks of Advanced Studio work — into the real Photoshop capabilities that set strong designers apart from merely certified ones.

This is not a tour of Photoshop menus. It’s a progressive build of real design skill through projects that produce deliverables you would actually deliver to a client, a community, or a portfolio. Every week produces at least one portfolio-worthy artifact. By Week 18 you have a full body of work — a capstone campaign, a published portfolio, and the certification to back it up.

The Five ACP Exam Domains

Every week of this course traces back to one or more of these five domains. They’re the official Adobe objectives the exam tests:

• Domain 1 — Working in the Design Industry. Briefs, audiences, copyright, design principles, and the vocabulary of digital imaging.
• Domain 2 — Project Setup and Interface. The Photoshop workspace, document setup, resolution and color modes, importing assets, and managing swatches, gradients, and patterns.
• Domain 3 — Organizing Documents. Layers, layer types, layer comps, masks (layer, clipping, vector, alpha channel), and the difference between destructive and non-destructive editing.
• Domain 4 — Creating and Modifying Visual Elements. Raster and vector tools, type, selections, transformations, retouching, and filters. This is the biggest single domain.
• Domain 5 — Publishing Digital Media. Preparing assets for delivery, choosing the right file format and color profile, and exporting for web, print, mobile, and video.

The Adobe Certified Professional in Visual Design Using Adobe Photoshop exam is organized into five official objective domains. Every week of this course maps to one or more of them:

• 1 Working in the Design Industry
• 2 Project Setup & Interface
• 3 Organizing Documents
• 4 Creating & Modifying Visual Elements
• 5 Publishing Digital Media

The 18 weeks break into five phases. Each phase has a different rhythm and a different goal. The Associate Core weeks (3–7) are the most intense — that’s where you cover all five ACP domains in depth. The Advanced Studio weeks (10–17) are about going past the exam into the real skills working designers use every day.

Here’s where you’ll be each week. Every project is real — designed to produce something you’d actually use, deliver, or include in a portfolio. The exam happens in Week 9; the capstone showcase happens in Week 18.

This course is built around real deliverables. Every week you produce something — and most of it goes straight into your portfolio. By the time you reach the Week 18 showcase, you’ll have 17 portfolio pieces plus a full capstone campaign.

For Weeks 1–3, your instructor will provide creative briefs so you can focus on building Photoshop fluency. From Week 4 onward, you choose your theme — the audience, subject matter, and visual world your projects live in. Picking a theme you actually care about makes the work better and the learning faster.

Every project this course is graded against the same five-dimension rubric. You’ll see it Week 1 and use it every week — including self-assessment before you submit. Knowing the rubric lets you check your own work to the same standard your teacher will.

The Five Rubric Dimensions

• Task Completion & Accuracy (35%) — Did you actually finish what the brief asked for?
• Feature Choice & Method (20%) — Did you use the right Photoshop feature (non-destructive layers, smart objects, type styles) instead of working around it?
• Document Design & Accessibility (20%) — Does the work read clearly and meet design fundamentals?
• Communication & Purpose (15%) — Does the work do its job for the audience it was designed for?
• Professionalism & Efficiency (10%) — Are filenames correct, layers named, File Info set, work polished?

Readiness Bars

Throughout the course, you’ll hit readiness bars at Weeks 4, 7, 8, 9, 12, 15, and 18. These are checkpoints that tell you whether you’re on track for the next big milestone. If you’re below the bar, you’ll get targeted help — not a penalty. Below-bar weeks are common and easy to recover from when caught early.

You’ll use the same file naming pattern for every assignment for 18 weeks. This is how professionals name files. Starting now saves you hours of renaming later — and by Week 18, every file in your portfolio sorts cleanly by week and project.

A Real Example

If your name is Jordan Smith and you’re submitting the Week 1 Tool Reference Deck:

• smith-jordan_week01_tool-reference-deck.psd
• smith-jordan_week01_tool-reference-deck.pdf
• smith-jordan_week01_reflection.docx

Earning the ACP-VDP credential gives you a foundation that transfers to every other Adobe Creative Cloud app. Many programs follow this course with a complementary Adobe credential in Semester 2:

• Visual Design Using Adobe Illustrator — Vector illustration, logo design, scalable graphics, typography-as-artwork. Natural next step if you enjoyed Week 6 (typography & vectors).
• Print & Digital Media Publication Using Adobe InDesign — Multi-page layout, master pages, styles, long-form publication. Natural next step if you want to present your photo portfolio in published form.
• Digital Video Using Adobe Premiere Pro — For students whose work leans toward motion and recorded media. Natural next step if Week 15 (motion in Photoshop) was your favorite.

The design principles, source-rights habits, and file-discipline patterns you learn here all transfer. You won’t be starting over in a Semester 2 credential — you’ll be specializing.