Adobe has been running round the country doing lots of workshops. Their campus tour is aimed at students and university staff, but I was lucky enough to be invited by a member of staff.

I went to three 45 minute workshops about different Adobe products. The instructor raced through the various useful new features and I tried to keep up with my note taking. I was able to relax in the Dreamweaver session because I knew a lot of it, but I couldn't afford to blink in the Photoshop and Illustrator session.

The instructor made it all look very easy, but now I come to look through my notes I realise it's going to take me a while to learn how to use the things he showed us.

The first thing I've managed to learn and actually do, is to use the Adobe photomerge tool. I've always liked the pictures David Hockney made by joining together lots of Polaroid pictures and I was wondering why I was starting to see lots of examples of people creating similar affects. It turns out they've discovered this Photoshop tool as well.

You can find this tool in all CS versions of Photoshop. It's in File > Automate > Photomerge. It takes a collection of files, automatically positions them so they all join up, blends the joins and also sorts out the perspective. I'm sure you could fool it with a difficult picture, but I'm very impressed. Here is an example I've done of the Corn Exchange that uses 6 photos I took. I would have cropped it, but I've left the edges to give you a better idea of how the joining worked.

• See a bigger version of my Corn Exchange picture on Flickr.

PaperVision is an open source project to make 3D in Flash much easier than it has been.

I've only had a very quick play, but I was able to create this lovely photo cube very quickly.

It's based on an example on The Flash Blog. I can see a lot of potential for including this in my future flash work. 3D can make things look more impressive, but a sense of space can also make things easier to use.

Some very nice people have called me brave for handing in my notice and deciding to become freelance. They're wrong though. I've just not let myself think about it too much. If I had, then I would have talked myself out of it. They also seem convinced that I will be really successful and have no problems. I'm hoping they're right about that, the confident part of me thinks they are.

I've worked in government communications for five years in the web team of The Department for Work and Pensions. I sort of got the job by accident, while I wasn't really looking for a job. After the software company I'd been working for went bust, I decided to temp to pay the bills while I looked for a new job. I found myself at DWP doing the filing for a print production team.

There was a small team next to us that were responsible for the department's website. Every so often I'd overhear them stuck on some problem and I would go over and sort it out for them. It wasn't too long till they offered me a job.

I think I've been very lucky and found a lot of opportunities here. I've done a lot of exciting projects and met some great people. I occasionally like to drop into conversation that I got to work at Downing Street for a while on secondment. It was only for six weeks, but it's a fascinating place.

I've been promoted four times in the last five years and have been the lead developer of the team for the last year and a half. I have my own team of people to do my bidding. I was worried about managing people, but they made it really easy. They're a good team and didn't need much managing. I just tried to make sure I was there to help them out when they got stuck or things were difficult.

The great thing about working for government is that occasionally you get to work on a project that feels important, and that might actually help people and make a difference. I think the Internet could really offer government some fantastic ways to communicate with and understand the public they're serving. We're just feeling our way at the moment, but they'll get there.

Part of me would like to stay and be part of that, but it's time to move on. I've got so many ideas and things in government just move too slowly for me. There's a lot of exciting stuff happening and I'd like to be at the cutting edge of it. I'm hoping that being freelance will give me that chance. I'm also hoping it will pay the bills.

I'm really going to miss everyone and it's sad and scary to leave somewhere that is so comfortable and familiar. It doesn't really feel real yet. I've still got four more weeks of work and that seems like ages. I'm gradually becoming more excited. I'm doing something I've wanted to do for ages. Even if I don't make a fortune, I'm doing what I want to do, and that's fantastic.