About Luminous Works

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Expert Instruction in a Superb Environment

Thanks for 20 great years!

Our Mission

We provide award-winning and luxuriously personal education in creative technologies to motivated individuals and groups. We give context and teach practical workflows, not just features, delivering a solid return on investment to our students. As we say, "ROI is our MO."

Creating in the Era of Generative AI

Purposeful creation involves intention, skill, and, often enough, serendipity. With an insightful prompt, Generative AI software might render your vision—or it might not. Inspired by the adage that “chance favors the prepared mind,” we provide you with knowledge and skills for purposeful creation and successful use of GenAI.

The Classroom

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You deserve a comfortable learning environment—and a healthy one:

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We use multiple HEPA filters to clear the air of wildfire smoke and viruses. When wildfires aren't a problem, we invite outdoor air into the mix as well.

Founded in 2003, in Ballard since 2006

For two decades, we've been serving our Seattle neighbors as a local business. And, although we may be proudly local, we have been delighted to welcome students from around the world.

A note about certifications:

From our first day until Adobe's termination of the training partner program at the end of 2023, Luminous Works has been an Adobe Authorized Training Center (AATC) and our instructors Adobe Certified Instructors. We did not merely meet the stringent requirements for those certifications, we defined them by helping create Adobe's certification exams. We are one of the very few facilities around the world able to achieve or maintain those requirements, which partially explains why Adobe ended the program. Of course, Luminous Works continues to maintain those high standards and retain our other certifications.

Our Refined Curriculum

View and/or download A map of our Curriculum [PDF].

We'd be honored to be your hosts for any of our training classes or workshops. The quality of your education is paramount. We solicit your feedback and value every word. Speaking of which...

A Few Random Testimonials

We'd like to serve you

We've helped major institutions like Boeing, Nike, Adobe, Microsoft, The Seattle Times, REI, Macy's and Nordstrom; hundreds of professional and amateur photographers, major graphic design firms and studios of one; all-around creative companies; educational institutions like the University of Washington, community colleges and school districts throughout Washington and Oregon; and we've trained individual billionaires, millionaires, and starving artists.

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The People

Carla Fraga and Steve Laskevitch, Luminous Works' founders, have been teaching photography, design, and software for many years as well as producing fine art photography, books, and more. Every day, we use the products and technologies we teach.


Steve Laskevitch is a certified instructor, teaching Photoshop, Illustrator, Lightroom, and InDesign (and more). Luminous Works' founder fell in love with teaching and computer graphics in the 1980s while studying physics, education, and photography. He has spent the 21st century both teaching and doing desktop publishing, founding Luminous Works in 2003. Steve has built production workflows for many companies and helps Adobe prepare Certified Instructor exams. For four and a half years, Steve led the Seattle InDesign User Group. Now, he's Luminous Works' curriculum director and lead instructor, creator of the Course & Compendium series of books, and presenter to many industry groups. Over the years, he has taught at:
The Design Department of Cornish College of the Arts (where he was awarded the Excellence in Teaching Award); University of Washington Professional & Continuing Education (nominated for their Excellence in Teaching Award); and Seattle Central College.
Steve is obsessed with New Haven style pizza. Don't tell, but the best of that is to be had in Portland, Oregon: Apizza Scholls.


Carla Fraga an educator for over two decades in analog and digital media, is Luminous Works' Provost. She is the recipient of the 2012-2013 Teaching Excellence Award for her work in the photography certificate program for University of Washington Professional & Continuing Education. Carla also served on the advisory board for their Advanced Digital Imaging. She has also taught at other institutions in the region including Seattle University. For eight years she assisted and curated over sixty photography exhibits at the FotoCircle Gallery in Seattle. Her BA in English from the University of Texas at Austin serves her endeavors as the author of The Last Strange Kings, a multibook fantasy/ historical-fiction-set-in-a-made-up world series. The third book of five published in 2020. She received her MFA in Photography from the San Francisco Art Institute.


Iván Eldredge's journey in video editing education, grounded in his cinematography background and deep expertise in Adobe Creative Cloud, has led him to become a trusted educator. As the sole Adobe Certified Instructor for Premiere® Pro in Ecuador, he has shared his knowledge with hundreds of students through various teaching formats. His training programs extend to corporate and government organizations both in Ecuador and internationally. Additionally, his contributions to training centers Luminous Works and his role as a speaker for Adobe webinars highlight his commitment to advancing the skills of the creative community.


Regan Heineke has 15 years of proposal writing and management experience in a variety of industries—construction, software, real estate, agriculture, and legal—working both as a freelancer and a full time employee. She has managed proposals for project values ranging in size from tens of thousands to one billion and produced documents ranging in size from ten pages to several hundred pages with multiple layers of tabs/organization. She has proposed individual firms and multi-disciplinary teams consisting of internal and external technical experts. Her work has encompassed the complete proposal lifecycle, from competitor and owner research to debrief and scoring analysis.


Peachy T. Peach is our mascot and inspiration to smile on difficult days. She likes to bake cookies, wear sparkly head adornments, and appear in Steve's Photoshop classes and books.

 

Our Neighborhood:

Nearby are both high-end and laid-back restaurants, vibrant pubs and taverns, all mixed in with the historic area's vital light manufacturing and fishing industries. Oh yes, and the growing list of shops and galleries means there's always something nearby to inspire. So if the traffic that awaits is not appealing, why not stay in the neighborhood and relax for a while?

Some Ballard eateries near us

For more info on our neighborhood: visitseattle.org. (or Wikipedia's entry on Ballard).

Accommodations:

Contact us for our growing list of other hotels and B&Bs, most of which have been vetted by other students.

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