The exams test your knowledge of the application for which you sit the exam, not other applications in the Creative Suite, though you may get the odd question about preparing an image for InDesign, for example but that's not the same as being tested on how to use InDesign. If you sit the Photoshop exam, then expect to answer questions on Bridge, Camera Raw and Device Central because they are all bundled with Photoshop.

Adobe publish an Exam Prep that lists the areas that you will be tested on. You can use it plus the application Help to prepare yourself, or you can use a commercial exam aid (we sell them for almost the entire Creative Suite), or a combination.

"Just wondering if anyone else out there can give me some advice that will help me get over the line next time."

There is an art to self study. Instead of relying on the questions in an exam aid to verify whether you have the required knowledge, you should ask yourself whether you know the "area" the question is testing you on (the false choices can be just as helpful at pinpointing your knowledge, or lack thereof, as the true choices). This way, you will be better prepared when unexpected questions pop-up "in the real exam" or they are couched in different scenarios or language.

If you don't know Photoshop to an expert level (what that is can be debated ad nauseam), chances are you will fail. The exam aids can only help to prepare you, much like a trainer: you must have the body and the will to begin with. In other words, know Photoshop fairly well to begin with and not just the areas you use and have the will to "crib" knowledge. For example, if you are a website designer, you may never look into offset printing or processing camera raw files but the exam will expect you to know how to output CMYK files and process raw files using Camera Raw, etc.

"Will I face different questions in the retest?"

Yes. Very unlikely you will see same question twice but it can happen.

"How long do I have to wait before I can retest?"

There is no time restriction as far as I am aware.

"How far away is the CS4 exam?"

I suspect it will be released in the early part of the new year now.

"Are there any sample tests online?"

The free Exam Preps include some sample questions. Our demo exam aids contain approx 15.

"Does the test cover Camera RAW, Configurator, All the Extended features as well as Bridge?"

The Photoshop CS4 exam won't cover Configurator (late addition) or Photoshop Extended features. It will cover Bridge as that is part of Photoshop but not as heavily as it did in the Photoshop CS3 exam.

"After all if you see "Adobe Certified Expert, Photoshop" what part of that lets you know that the Expert also knows Bridge and Camera RAW well enough to be qualified as an expert?"

Merely that both of the applications you mention are part and parcel of Photoshop. Therefore, you are expected to know them IF you wish to pass the Photoshop ACE exam. If you don't, then you can ignore them without any consequences, other than an impact on your workflow.

Bridge can be a great timesaver. Let's say you have 500 images in a folder from a shoot but you only want to resize 50. How do you do it from Photoshop? Answer: with great difficulty. In Bridge, you can select them visually and then use the Image Processor or Batch command. You can't really call yourself an expert if you don't know such time saving features of...Photoshop.

manjulavani

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