Desktop Publishing Books

Anyone remotely interested in animation should pick up this book. It is amazing. It is truly the perfect reference book for anyone who wants to animate, and do it well.

This is one of the best books on frame-by-frame 2D non-vector animation. The only problem is, Richard Williams overdoes it by a large margin. He is a man possessed with talent, and he demands perfection of himself. That is a hard way to do things, no? In every other respect, this book is excellent. By the way, the culmination of Richard Williams' style of work is the movie The Cobbler and the Thief, available online on [...]. The exact title to search for is this: The Thief and the Cobbler (2007 Recobbled Cut) [v2.0]

This is one of those books that has helped me out alot. If you are a beginning animator in need of learning the principles of animation or if you have had difficulty figuring out how to create walk cycles and facial character animation, then this book is for you.

I give this book 5 stars simply because it was written in a style that's easy to read and understand and uses common terminology. The best part about it is the readability and resourcefulness of the content. Everything a student needs to learn the subject matter in a motivating format!

If you like normal animation and if you like 3d animation or if you like stop motion animation...you'll find all information needed and much more inside this unique book!

This book is pretty good for beginners. I have recently started teaching myself html and I was able to handle most of the things I was reading about without too much trouble. There were a couple of times I really needed to pause and go back and read it again. Then maybe I could put it together. Only one or two times did I just give up with total frustration. All in all it's a great handbook and I am sure I will get it all someday!

The text was easy to read and gave a great number of examples but lacked any questions or problems at the end of each chapter.

A very good book if you would like to understand how HTML works

I've been doing HTML work on and off for the last 5-6 years. This book is full of great examples for beginners or more advanced users who just forgot how to do something. You won't regret owning this book.

Although the author gives some superfials explanations on JavaScript, CGI & DHTML, this book offers and comprehensive and fairly complete explanation on HTML.
Higly recommended for those willing to learn and master HTML.

I graduated from the University of Redlands (California) with a Bachelor of Science in Information Systems degree a few years ago. Many of the textbooks I used were not very enlightening - I suffered through using them and immediately took them back to the bookstore for resale. This wasn't so with the CREATING COOL HTML 4 book. I use this as a reference book now.

One of the classes I took included a web design portion. How fun to create web pages that were exciting and not boring. It was easily accomplished using this book as a guide but someone who knows nothing about HTML design could easily use this and create.

The chapters are broken down from the basics to intermediate items. The author, Dave Taylor, explains exactly what entails a web page, what a URL is, basic html, graphics, tables, links, pointers, image maps, and other advanced designs.

Now many technical books are dry to read and often times leave the non-die-hard techies wondering what was just said. Not true with Taylor. He gets everyone to understand html - those creating their first web page to those who want to do more, those that want pizzazz on their pages.
If you're not a beginner, you may want to skip the chapters in which Taylor explains to new users about Web pages, how browsers work, what URLs are, and other basic concepts. (But it can be a good refresher for those who haven't designed web pages in a while). Next he expands into basic HTML, fonts, text styles, and gets the reader to understand the making of lists, special characters, pointers, and links. Next comes the explanation of graphics and the creation of tables and frames. But my favorite part is next - chapters on advanced items like background, marquees, image maps, JavaScript, forms, plug-ins, Dynamic HTML, style sheets, and much more.
Examples shown in the book are easy to follow and let the reader completely understand what the code does and how it will look on a web page. Nothing in CREATING COOL HTML PAGES is overwhelming and will let everyone create a web page of which they can be proud. I'm a computer programmer, and still use this as a reference. In fact, it's one of the most borrowed books in our office! This book is highly recommended for any level of html programmer.

Her book was the only book I got for creating a Website with Dreamweaver and Fireworks. Following her tutorials I built a fabulous Website with cascading style sheets, rollovers, the works. I was never bored or confused, and I understood the "why" and well as the "how."

I've just downloaded a trial version of Dreamweaver MX and came here specifically to get HER book on Dreamweaver MX. Sadly, she doesn't seem to have published one.

Lynda Weinman knows what she is talking about. I have learned quite a bit following her lead.

I highly recommend this book. It was an excellent learning tool for me as a beginner. The tutorials were fabulous!

I enjoyed the exercises and layout of the book. For someone who never did any web development this book is great.

I must say that Lynda is, hands down, the best instructor I've ever come across on the printed page. I've been using Dreamweaver for over two years and I learned so much from this book. The chapters and exercises were so concise, so ordered and really a lot of fun. I recommend this book whole-heartedly!

I am a 3d professional artist for a long time, I have to say I have read hundreds of books, watched hours of training videos, read pages of internet tutorials anything related to 3d animation. No other training material comes even close to things I have learned reading this book. It is a treasure that you have to keep somewhere close to your desk as a reference, whether you are modeling a character head, building blend shapes or rigging . I have used the techniques successfully in many projects. I thank Jason Osipa for writing this book and for teaching me how to build superior 3D characters. This is my second SS book, I also have the first edition. This 2nd edition is a lot different then the first.

I hate to say this, but didn't learn much more than which I had already been able to get from online tutorials and forums.

Stop Staring: Facial Modeling and Animation Done RightThis book is a very good resource for computer animators.

Have you ever worked with a facial rig that was based on a set of sliders in the viewport? Many of the most popular free rigs use that method these days. Well guess what -- it's sometimes called "the Osipa method," and it was popularized by the first edition of this book.

As a novice character rigger, this book opened my eyes to an entirely new way of looking at facial modeling, rigging, and animation. I can not recommend it highly enough. These days when I create a character, I always have two books within quick reach: The Art of Rigging (by CG Toolkit, only available from their website) and Stop Staring.

I am a professional 3D character artist and I own a previos version of this book.
I am using Jason Osipa's method of facial set-up for all my characters, for animated film and games. Not only it is the system that's easy to use and understand, but it produces very attractive and believable facial expressions. I would recommend this book to anyone who ever touches digital characters, but especially to 3D modelers and riggers.

This book gives refreshing new ideas to use on photos. It is great for beginners and intermediate users. Goes through all the steps of how to get the effects you see on the page. The accompanying CD provides the pictures for you to follow along. Many worthwhile and useful effects to enhance photos. A book worth investing in.

I have been in photography for 35 years, but I would have to classify myself as an "advanced beginner" with Adobe Photoshop. Most of what I have learned, that has been really valuable to me, has been from the NAPP website,...you do have to join, but the information and training videos are well worth the membership fee. I do own a lot of Photoshop books because I wanted to learn as much as I could about it. It is such a powerful program, that it will do just about anything that you can imagine in your mind. "How to Wow" is absolutely THE BEST of all of the Photoshop books that I own. You do have to know your way around Photoshop at least a little, but this is a really good book to anyone that has learned the basic functions of any of the Photoshop programs. I am going to buy three more of these for Christmas gifts. I really do love this book, and you won't regret buying it.

I picked this book up when I was first starting into digital photography hoping to gain a few tidbits of knowledge to help enhance my photos. What I found instead was a treasure trove of step-by-step, easy to follow procedures for doing everyday tasks, like color balance adjustments, to more indepth tasks, like filling in a receeding hairline and photo restoration. Jack Davis approaches the subject with years of experience from teaching workshops and presents each chapter in layman's terms, foregoing technical jargon so many of us find ourselves mired in. Included with the book is a CD of presets for things such as texturing and frames. The presets alone make this book worth the price of admission but people of all skill groups will find the information collected useful and extremely easy to follow.

If you really read the book carefully, you'll find that there are at least a dozen techniques that you will want to refer to in future projects. I set tabs on sections of the book (via post-it notes) on about 15 technigues/effects/etc.
Well organized and with easy-to-follow instructions, it certainly is one of the very best books you'll find on Photoshop.

This book is too easy for an intermediate user, but a bit too advanced for a beginner. For a digital photographer with no Photoshop experience, Scott Kelby's The Photogrshop CS2 Book for Digital Photographer would be an alternative choice.

I've used about six Photoshop book. It's a decent book, but not a must have book. As an intermediate Photoshop user, I didn't pick up any new technique from this book. Therefore, I have exchanged this book for Linnea Dayton's Photoshop CS/CS2 Wow

Ben is that rare teacher who makes his subject clear for anyone, beginner or advanced user. He will not remain on my shelf, but in my travel bag and by the computer. This book will be well used and look it. Don't hesitate. Push the buy now button. You will not regret it. I am not related and have no financial interest in the book!!!!!!! Join the enlightened!!!!

This book is very good. Ben Willmore is an expert of expert. Buy it and it will not make you disappoited.

I'm a photoshop user since version 5, but with the latest developments I feld a little bit lost between all the possible features. Ben shows you how to use them and to develop your own style. It's more then telling how it works, but also how it can work for you. Now I can adjust and create my pictures even better. The book is easy to read, for the novice and even for an expert designer. Lot of tips, tricks and humor makes this book the best add-on for this product.

All of Ben's Studio Techniques books are a must read! There is no better Photoshop book out there! If you only buy one Photoshop book, this is the one to get!

Ben Willmore makes learning easy and appeals to the full range of learners. Great website support and lots of examples to help a person learn what they want. Dive in on any chapter and you will find out what you want to know and walk away with a better understanding of Photoshop as well. I would highly reccommend this book to all but the very newest to Photoshop, for it is jam-packed with knowledge that a lot of books promise but do not deliver.

I'm very pleased with this book. It's a great introduction to the GIMP, covering all the basics and also exploring some advanced effects you'll appreciate. It's got some great tips on drawing and photograph edition, with clear and simple examples. It's a must have for those who, like me, feel intimidated by the GIMP's unique interface.

If you're a novice at editing photos - the type of person who goes crazy trying to embed AutoCAD drawings or photos in Word documents - then this book is for you. I've been a little bit frustrated trying to find the exact page in this book that will tell me what I want to know, but overall, if you're patient, this book is great. If you haven't used the GIMP before, you should definitely have a text to help you out if you're doing more than cropping or color editing.
If you read through everything before attempting anything, I think this book may be 5 stars, but I haven't read it all.

A lot of folks don't know - or have conveniently forgotten - how daunting any technology can be, whether new or old. (If old technology, one is embarrassed in addition to being afraid: "how could I not have known this?" If new technology, one is embarrassed by falling back on the excuse of being old: "well, I come from the age of typewriters, so how could - or why should - I have known this?" Each is disingenuous.) The GIMP is no exception to those of us raised on the Royal Portable (see how easy it is!). Along comes Akkana Peck and demystifies that little Wilber. She takes me from one teachable moment to another, using the hokey-pokey approach. ("You've got knees... come on... everybody's got knees... just put them together close up tight....") And she mixes in plenty of immediate applications so you get immediate feedback and reward. And she uses clear, penetrable prose - the way real people talk when they're sitting together working through an issue. So, thank you, Akkana Peck. You really democratize technology and invention. (Thanks, von Hippel, for raising that question.)

One last thing. Real professionals, true to their calling, faithful to their foundations, never - *never* - flinch from relearning what they thought and hoped they learned when they were novices. Faith demands humility. One always learns from how a master does what you think you know. There is a difference between education and training. To criticize this book because it is 'not professional enough' merely demonstrates, I'm afraid (and you should be, too), that some of us confuse technology and technique.

David Block

This is a book about GNU Image Manipulation Program, an open source replacement for the expensive Photoshop software. I played with GIMP for a couple of years with some on-line tutorials. I didn't get very far and I was frustrated. With "Beginning Gimp, From Novice to Professional", I'm finding that the power of the software is amazing. It's also not hard to learn. Really! Now I'm doing great work and spending very little time getting it done. If you have done some photo editing, you know that getting great results quickly is a big deal.

The on-line instructions are out of date so forget it. Whether you are creating art with dazzling special effects, touching up vacation photos, adding text, making fliers and advertising copy, or all of the above, read this book. This is obviously a big endorsement of GIMP software too. [...]

This book is a must-have for anyone using GIMP for more than cropping and removing red-eye.

I've been using GIMP for about 3 months. I've been figuring out how to do different actions by trial and error, through web searches, and by reading PhotoShop books and tutorials. I tired of experimenting to understand the details of tools, and bought this book. It is OUTSTANDING. It contains clear explanations of many GIMP functions, and gives details and examples about the settings that control each one. I find the author's instructions very clearly written, well organized and complete.

Ms. Peck's technical skills and knowledge are reflected in her writing - she knows software development and software use, and communicates it well.

So far this book has greatly improved my use of many GIMP features and tools including: Layers, Clone, Selection tools, Selection Editing, Quick Mask, brushes, and paths, to name just a few.

My only criticism is that I have had a few advanced questions that are not covered, but this has been very rare. I'd welcome this book being twice as long - and I'd buy that new edition in a heartbeat. But until this outstanding author writes that book, the current edition is a great resource for learning and using GIMP.

This product was bought as a gift for a bright 16 year old girl. It was purchased to fuel her interest in PhotoShop without her having to first wade through a ton of dry how to. This book allowed her to see what was possible so that she now seeks out the ways that she can do other more mundane applications of the program. It provided what it was purchase for. A match for a creative fire.

I purchased this book over a year ago, and I'm still using it. You give several examples in your chapters on how to do a certain task, in a down to earth writing style which I find very easy to understand. I've become so much more efficient in Photoshop thanks to your book.
Cheers!

This is a very fun book to work thru. It comes with a CD that has photos to work with. You will install the CD and use the different effects over and over. I find myself going back to the book on many different projects. Most of the effects are ones that you can use in editing any type of photo. I loved the book and recomend it highly. Even beginners will find it easy to follow.

Just got into this book and I love it already. It may help for you to have another book along for tool and palette reference. The accompanying cd-rom is a great help, but i just wish that it had more videos. This book is definitely one of the top PAdobe Photoshop CS2 One-on-One (One-On-One)hotoshop books that I own.

This is an excellent hands-on tutorial in getting the most out of Photoshop CS2, Ostensibly about creating realistic-looking photomontages (though most of the examples wouldn't fool someone who's paying attention), this book is actually for anyone who has struggled to learn about layers and masks and levels. It's accessible and fun.

A classic, if you can find it. If you have one, don't let it out of your sight. A master course on channel theory that is a must have for forensic professionals.

Sell the Nordic Trak on ebay and buy this book.

Jim Hoerricks
http://forensicphotoshop.blogspot.com
Author of Forensic Photoshop - a comprehensive imaging workflow for forensic professionals

I'm a student learning Photoshop and I must say this is one of the best Photoshop books I have ever come across. The authors explain every aspect in a detailed and engaging way. In other books, I may read a chapter and understand how to do something but I often ask why it's done that way. Photoshop Channel Chops gives thorough explanations on many different channel operation methods that makes sense and leaves me wanting to read

Wow! The authors really know their stuff! There is so much information in this book it's scary. This book is a must-read for anyone who takes Photoshop seriously. Sure, it was written years ago when Photoshop was at version 4, and sure the writing gets a bit corny at times, but it is still a "killer app" among Photoshop books.

If you aspire to be a hardcore Photoshop user, this book is probably the one you want above all others. It's not a step-by-step tutorial, a mere reference book, or a book that leads you through the tools and various functions of the software. Instead it discusses the fundamental concepts you need to know to use Photoshop to its fullest. Some statements in the book are outdated, but fortunately, they are usually statements of opinion and occur only in a few places. Most of the book is still applicable since Photoshop today still has channels, alpha channels, paths, layers, and calculations. This book hasn't been updated since it was written in 1998, but it really doesn't need to be. It's not about how to use particular tools and new features. It's about how to think with Photoshop. And it's deep enough to read over and over for reference. I would encourage even beginner Photoshop users to read this book if they are really committed, especially if they want to learn about compositing. By the end of this book, you'll be able to understand how Photoshop does what it does, and why it is such a powerful program.

I hate the books that only talk about particular special effects and how to achieve them, without telling you why it should be done that way. With Photoshop, you want to be in control. This book allows to be in control. It will explain exactly what's going on behind the scenes. After reading this book, I felt like being a Photoshop guru. It was nice.

This book has photos that are easy to see, explains things as to why (unlike most books) and goes into depth on how to create a website in Photoshop. If you are looking to get this book for scrapbooking, try looking at digital magazine subscriptions. While this is a great book, it doesn't show how to make elements or how to even scrapbook. However, you won't be disappointed if you purchased this book. You'll learn a lot that can be applied once you open your scrapbooking files.

This is another in the WOW series and even though it's for the last interation of photoshop (CS2) there is a wealth if info here. It's all in color, clearly explained. It gives you an overview of how much you can do in this amazing program and helps you develop the chops to put it to use. Nicewly structured so you can pick and choose what you need at the time if you don't want to read it cover to cover. You won't need every technique here but it gives you the tool to apply in other ways for whatever you want to do. One of the easily accessible and useful books on the subject.

This book is to me the bible of Photoshop. It's so thorough and thick, and it's large number of illustrations, screen shots, and photos make it work whether I am carefully following a book example on my computer, or sitting and reading without the computer.

Let me begin by saying that this book is BIG, slightly bigger than a hard backed dictionary or textbook. If you plan on carrying this around in a backpack or ferrying it between school/work and home, don't.

This book has a humongous, colorful wealth of information. I guarantee that this book will show you how to do ANYTHING you could possibly want to do in Photoshop. Whether you plan on reading it straight through or using it as a reference book (I recommend the latter), you will appreciate the collection of tips and tricks this book has to offer.

Covering everything from picture touchups to full fledged graphic design, this book is artfully written and painstakingly thorough in its design. With pictures demonstrating everything, along with the helpful and easy to follow text, this book is great for those wanting to really get into Photoshop. If you're a graphic artist or have a job that requires the use of Photoshop, this book will expand your knowledge and understanding of Photoshop. Whether you're new to photoshop or a professional, this book is definitely a wise investment to help further your Photoshop skills.

This is your Photoshop Bible that you should keep with you at all times! I just hate that I paid $65 for it at Borders, when I could have gotten it here for MUCH less!