Desktop Publishing Books

Wanderfull! I finally really doing it!
(what about character animation cbt?)

DEAR Jason Leong from SINGAPORE PLEASE SEND AN E-MAIL
FOR ME : MAXBOX200@YAHOO.COM
I'M WATING TO HEARING FROM YOU.

I have about 20 to 25 books on max and only 2 other books have valuted my skill level as high as this CD has done.
The CD plays great and flows at an excellent pace. Even the way they teach, gives you some great layout and operational techniques to make using MAX so much more efficient.
Plus what makes this training great is THE TUTOR. He is creatig the model at the same time as he is telling you what to do. Hence you always see his steps even if he skips mentioning it.
I have never been so pleased using one product as I have been using this CD.
As someone wrote earlier the CD is worth 3 times more than what we paid for it.

This CD has greatly improved my modelling skills and knowledge in max. It is like having a teacher there showing you and explaining every step, with the advantage of rewinding as many times as you need to. I would recommend this to the beginner of max modelling. It has certanily helped me out a long way. And Tim Kugler provides great support as well.

What are you waiting for, go buy a copy!
Shan J

I have talk to Tim before the author for this Cd.He's a nice chap.I got hold his disc and when through.I was shocked all this while I bought a lot of books on MAX.But none help through for a successfull modeling.But I went through his stuff its power and easy to understand.he make it so easy to absord....I recommend for Max lovers to go for his CD.

I can't say enough great things about this book. It's full of interesting projects to try, and the design of the book itself is great, light and airy, despite being packed with useful information.

You'll need some software to try the projects in it, an image editor of some kind and a printer. But that's all you need for most of the projects described. Janet Ashford has really creative ideas for transforming every day objects like metal tins and boxes, using computer designs.

I can just about guarantee, if you're artistic at all and you buy this book, you'll not only enjoy it, but you'll wind up designing some really amazing things as a result!

Being an arts and crafts designer from way back, I have always wanted to own this book. I couldn't find it on the shelves a couple of years ago and proposed to write such a book when I found myself inventing paper crafts for PrintMaster, a card design program produced by the Learning Company.

But Janet Ashford beat me to it. And she has the know-how it would have taken me years to acquire. This is a magnificent tome, one that inspires as well as informs the crafts addict. Her expanations are sophisticated but clear to anyone who has passed beyond the basics. Lots of the projects are very artful and have the look of "handmade" without being too cutsy or too advertisingly slick.

I recommend this book to anyone who loves crafts and has access to a computer with the big three type programs: layout, photo adjusting, and drawing. If you are new to computers, an accompanying book or class will set you up for this one.

The potential of the computer in craft has been seriously damaged by the excitement computers have generated. A parallel can be found when the Russian novelist Tolstoy was given a dictaphone to help speed up his writing. After a few weeks he threw it out the window. His neighbor asked if it didn't work. Tolstoy's reply was "It worked fine, but I got so excited using it I couldn't write." For almost two decades a generation of designers have succumbed to the excitement and hype of the computer without significantly adding any real content or substance to their work under the digitized banner. It is time for that to change, and Janet Ashford is a winning harbinger of that change.

It doesn't help matters that most design software seems to be written by the left-brain dominant spouses of craft practitioners...well intentioned souls with no sense of the real kinesthetics of working color, form, texture.

Janet Ashford has navigated through the difficult middle course between technology and entrancement. She draws! She creates custom palettes in her application software! She doesn't hit you over the head or talk down to the reader. Perhaps her experience of designing for and with her daughter has given her the wonderful tone of teaching someone she likes, who is lacking in knowledge but not in ability. That is a prized gift in any teacher, and Ashford has it mastered.

She has maintained her enthusiasm, her innocent pleasure in sharing the joys of color and pattern, line, light and form. She is conscientious in gathering really useful resources together into a book that can pay off in serious fun the first weekend you get to use it, without resorting to false expectations. Buy the book. Use the example. You, and your craft, will be enriched without hype or over-simplification. Serious artists and craftspeople do not expect the tool to do the real work of creation for them. This book is written for the serious artists and craftspeople at any stage of their careers...from about 9 years old on up.

This is a good reference for general information about using a computer to enhance or create art. The author mainly uses Adobe products, such as Photoshop and Illustrator for editing images and graphics. Before you will be able to create these projects, you have to be familiar with your software AND have software to create some of the effect (image editor, paint and graphics program). If you are looking for a book that specifically tells you how to do these things, that will not be found here. You have to be "computer-literate" and software-literate to get the most from this book.

There is a lot of good information provided and several projects are shown using illustrations and photographs, not in a step-by-step format.

Ashford knows the art of computer craftmaking and provides the reader with very good starting points for crafts that intertwine computer and manual art. Regarding hardware/software she clearly favors Mac/Adobe, so her recommendations reflect this. In spite of this slant, she gives some helpful overviews of the technological side of various formats, graphic standards, etc.
Want to intermingle computer graphics with your arts and crafts? Here's a good starting point.

I have only recently delved into the further workings of AutoCAD 2000 and thought I'd try my hand at VBA Programming. So I bought this book. As an beginner to programming in general (though not to VB6) I thought the book would be a little above my experience.......WRONG!! This book is an excellent publication for beginner to intermediate users. If, as a VBA programmer, you can't find anything useful in this book then maybe you need to consider your career..........Absolutely outstanding

Great book for beginners and intermediate programmers. Want to learn VBA in AutoCAD? This is the book to get. It contains tons of sample code and a full object reference in the appendix.

This is one of the best book I have bought. Within a month's time I was on my own with VBA. Code examples and explanation presented in this book can be digested very rapidly. Of course, it is not dealing with forms at all. But still it is excellent piece of work. Simply click "Add to shopping cart" without loss of any time.

Joe Sutphin covers the broad spectrum of AutoCAD VBA pretty effectively. My number one reference source for programming in ACAD. Much like a dictionary or thesaurus for VBA in ACAD.

That is what I was looking for. It is great for beginners and professionals. You can find many examples and quickly use it in your needs.

Excellent book: clear, succint and detailed in explanations of AutoCAD design. I tried other books before, but this one really motivates you to keep going and review all the tricky parts of this program.
The following is not a critique of the book but rather my wishes on my engineering field: I would have liked to have several examples of electrical design applications in the book.
Anyway, thanks for your book.
Joseph

I recommend this to anyone who is interested in learing the basics of autocad. After using the book, I can now create professional floor plans for the apartments that I own and manage

Follow the instructions and you will be able to navigate through Auto Cad in no time at all. Easy to understand,well written and illustrated for the first time Cad user. Excellent reference manual.

Great, easy learning tool!
Highy recommended as navigational reference of "how to" design.

As the title says, No Experience Required. I tried several AutoCAD books including the"Dummies" series and it seems they all assume that the reader has some basic knowledge of AutoCAD. Frey assumes nothing and teaches by example, which to me is the best way to learn. Start with this book, learn a chapter a day, and in a couple of weeks you'll have a good working knowledge of AutoCAD. Then you can pick up some of the other books and go from there.

This book works through some great effects in cookbook style, such that if you follow the recipe, you can great some fantastic results. Although I am using CorelDraw 8 LE on the Mac, and am a beginner when it comes to graphic arts, I was still able to amaze friends and family with the output!

The written style is clear, concise and easily understood, and the side bars are very informative. The color pictures in the center of the book are helpful in defining the target look, and the enclosed CD with electronic "recipes" and results is great.

This is now in my top 10 technical book list!

I absolutely LOVE this book. It's opened up a whole new world of possibilities with Corel Draw 9. By the time I've experimented with all of the tutorials, I'm sure I'll be quite the whizz kid. Unfortunately, I'll have to do it all without any help from the CD. There is no INSTALL.EXE on the CD. Therefore, I am unable to install it. Although I can access its contents through my CD-ROM, using it that way tends to freeze up my system and it's just not worth the aggravation. But the book itself is a real jewel and I truly enjoy reading and learning from it. Shane Hunt's writing style immediately puts the reader at ease. This alone is worth its weight in gold and is a rare and welcome commodity in "How-To" books. Thanks Shane!

This is the best how to book I have ever worked through. It is a must have for Corel Draw 9 and 10 users who have never learned all the hidden secrets and shortcuts to this program. After learning each and every technique in this book, my talents in graphic design have multiplied greatly! I find my self creating amazing graphics I never would have believed possible. Thanks Shane Hunt for writing this incredible book!

After trying several of the web based tutorials I decided to try Shane's book. One of the best things about this book is that it takes an artistic approach in the instruction. I have used what I have learned from this book in all my projects to date. Shane has made me a more creative Corel Draw user. After several years of just using Corel Draw I am now creating on a level I never could have attained before. One should know the basics of Corel Draw before using this book. If you know how to access the menu commands then you should get this book. Highly recommended.

The CorelDraw 9: FX and Design is one of the best books on the market to get the most out of your software package. Author Shane Hunt knows his stuff. He presents facts, tips and creative ideas in a fun and entertaining way. This book is exactly what I needed to teach me the 'how' of CorelDraw 9 and at the same time teach incredible creative tools I can use right away. The Official Guides are fine but this book gives you the tools to think not only 'outside the box' but outside the stratosphere.

This book is clearly a "must have" for anyone developing with VFE. Despite spending a fair amount of time on the VFE Tech Support Conference, attending 2 VFE DevCons, etc., I have found this book to be invaluable. In particular, I like the narratives on the Instantiation of the Application object and Form, along with the discussion of various key properties and methods of the major classes. To the extent that one spends time actually studying these narratives, properties, and methods in conjunction with stepping thru the code, I feel this will reap rewards in the form of better productivity and higher quality applications. For those who aspire to get some depth of understanding of this framework, this book is for you.

This book is a "must have" reference for all Visual Foxpro programmers who use Visual FoxExpress. The information in this book will save many hours of development time. I highly recommend it.

I have read this book twice and will probably read it again. Everytime I read it I gain a little more insight into this great foundation and n-tier development. I especially like the explanation of the step-through logic in Chapter 10 and the explanation of each method in the various objects.

I think that if you buy Visual FoxExpress and buy this book, you will reduce your learning curve by several months.

This book is great for both new users of the VFE framework and experienced users alike. Not only does it provide step-by-step guidelines for building your apps with the VFE framework, but it also contains numerous tips and tricks for experienced developers. A required reference for all VFP/VFE developers!

This book is a crucial part of my reference library. Although Visual FoxExpress comes with good documentation and a sample application, it lacks the step by step walkthrough with explanations on the thoughts behind the concepts. This book fills in the blanks very nicely and helps the reader to gain a better understanding of not just the "how" but also the "why". The authors do not hesitate to inject their own observances and opinions about working this powerful framework. This makes it an interesting read as well as a good reference.

This book is a great resource for when you're looking for that specific line of code. Its terrible to read from front to back, but its an excellent way to find exactly what you're looking for. Its so much code, it'll make your eyes bleed.

Director 8.5 is a monster application with huge range of functionality. Nyquist's "Bible" uses CD-ROM-based tutorials to carry you through the concepts with relative ease. The tutorials are part of one continuous complex project, taking the reader from the basics through media management, interactivity, project management and some pretty sophisticated Lingo programming. It is also organized to allow easy reference for specific issues. Having recently completed an 'Emedia & Design' programme I would have to say that Nyquist's book is probably the most valuable text in my library.

There is no better book with which to get involved in Director. I've read nearly all of them; nothing else comes CLOSE! Get IT! ENJOY IT! LOVE IT!

Este libro es realmente extraordinario para aprender a usar director, pues se ve desde el uso basico de cada herramienta aplicando los ejemplos que incluye el cd-rom.

Recomiendo este libro a quien nunca haya usado director antes, y para aquellos que habiendo usado, solo han aprendido por su cuenta sin referencias técnicas.

A well written book of the "Bible" series! Great examples and delivered in an understandable "lingo." This book is a must have for all Director developers regardless of your level or experience. There is a ton of useful information for everyone.

This is a very nice reference work for image processing professionals. It is a collection of articles by various experts in aspects of image processing, reporting on the state-of-the-art in their particular domains. The coverage is broad and deep. However, it is not for everyone. The writing style is that of a refereed journal. If you are not comfortable with that style of exposition, or if you are simply trying to find a snippet of code to implement a particular algorithm, this is not the book for you. At the other extreme, do not expect to find new and startling insights into the field that you did your dissertation on. However, if you want to understand the current state of the art of a colleague's field, or if you need to expand your expertise into a new area of image processing, this is a very good place to start.

This is an encyclopedia of image processing topics. It contains some introductory material to help people understand what images are and how to process them. The majority of the text, however, is for experienced people wanting to look up topics.

This book is big. It is about 8"x11" by 900 pages. It contains material from 100 different professionals on 50 different topics.

The style is academic. The editor is the editor of the IEEE Transactions on Image Processing. The page style is similar to what you would see in an IEEE Transaction.

There is plenty of math. The text explains the mathematics, but not to the depth I would like to see.

The authors illustrate the techniques with many images. If there are no "before and after" images in an image processing book, reject it. Well, this book has plenty of images. That is a strong point.

A week point is there is no source code illustrating the techniques and algorithms. I find this a major weakness, but one that is not unique to this book.

The authors leave much to the reader. This is not a read from cover to cover book. The reader must go slow, take notes, study, and read again to understand the material.

All in all, this is a good source of knowledge on image processing. If you work with images and write software to process images, you should have this book on your desk.

This is the book to have on the subject! It covers almost any aspect that you can think of in image/video processing. This is a MATH intensive book and it will not tell you how to directly implement any of its concepts in code. The author assumes that the reader will be able to do this on there own. Topics are very well explained, but sometimes I needed to reread a topic 3 or 4 times and go over the math a couple times to fully understand. Great book to have as an encyclopedia like resource on the shelf.

This book is just GREAT.
It covers almost every single ascpect of image and video processing. Everything is in deep and very good explained. A lot of before-and-after example pictures (important ones in color) are provided too. But beware. You need a fairly good understanding of math to read the book. It is not intended to explain how to use Photoshop, but rather how to write your own ;-)
This book is not a read-along book. Sometimes you have to read a section 2 or 3 times to understand it.
I think sometimes a good Snippet of C-Code would help to understand, but this is acceptable.
Again: A outstanding book, which fully covers all my needs.
The price of 100 us$ is ok, because it's a lot of a book...

There is a 2nd edition of this book that was published in July 2005, so all reviews earlier than that are referring to the first edition. Regardless, the second edition of this book is just as good as the first. There are many texts that do a good job of covering image processing, but few do such a good job of covering all of the aspects of video processing - motion detection and estimation, video enhancement and restoration, and video segmentation. There is an entire section on video compression which discusses the H.261 standard, wavelets and video compression, object-based video coding, and the various MPEG standards. There are also articles on video indexing and retrieval and a unified framework for video browsing and retrieval.
In the area of image processing, there is much good information here, but the basics are better explained in "Digital Image Processing" by Gonzales and Woods. Once you master that book, this makes a good secondary reference on image processing. Although this book does go over some image processing basics, it is better at explaining more advanced concepts such as multiframe image restoration, wavelet denoising, 3D shape reconstruction from multiple views, and statistical methods for image segmentation. There are many bad books out there that are collections of articles, but don't let that scare you off. This really is a collection of very good articles published together in a coherent fashion.
There are plenty of equations, example images, and instructive figures in the articles to help explain each concept. Highly recommended.

When OS 9 Classic was retired, it forced a radical transition to reorganize and manage fonts without the ATM.

This book is the clearest and simplest guide for OSX users to understand how font functionality has altered in the OSX environment. Also vital to crossplatform users, the author Zardetto Aker simplifies the complex nature of sharing fonts between two platform radicals (Windows and APPLE).

Those who earn their living in computer design using real world situations would benefit from buying this book.

One analogy that describes it best:

Any graphic project is like the recipe for a perfect pot of "CHILI"
FONTS are the spices going into that pot.
If you don't manage the spice in your chili, like not managing the fonts in your project .... You wind up with disaster.

MUST READING ... Zardetto Akers' Font Management in OSX takes the confusion out of the font dynamics restructured on OSX.

I love my Mac, & I love typography. What I don't love is the mind-numbing complexity of OSX's font handling. Although I don't lament the passing of the ever-crashing OS9, it's framework for fonts was beautifully simple. There's a price for progress.

This book provides what's needed to understand the foundation concepts and terminology, and to deal confidently with common font issues. Thoroughly explained, it's made apparent that the font framework of OSX is not so incomprehensible after all. For any tech-savvy graphic artist or designer, an indispensable volume for your reference shelf.

What a splendid guide! Even if you are content to use TIMES ROMAN all the time, you should still look at this book to see a model of how to write a computer guide. None of the breezy self conscious humor you find in some books (the Dummy series or Scott Kelby's otherwise informative PhotoShop books). But friendlier and more attuned to the reader's anxieties and potential mistakes than the standard dry guides (e.g. the Missing Manuals series, which are not bad). Aker seems to sense exactly what you might need to know at just the right moment, but yet does not overwhelm you without a lot of detail all at once.

I recently switched from a PC (since 1980)to Mac, which is as everyone said so much more elegant, stable and better in almost every respect. But the font system is just as complicated and eccentric in OS X as in Windows XP. You need to do some housekeeping even if you are not a font maven. Follow the steps carefully laid out in Chapter 2 (rather tedious but precise), and your system will run more smoothly and you will know a lot about where your fonts are, and how to keep them behaving well.

I am almost never moved to write reviews here, and certainly not of computer books. But this is an exceptional contribution.

Face it - you'd think just putting your fonts in the FONT folder would be sufficient. But, strange things do happen. And, for me it is never at a good time. Like when you upgrade Adobe CS ... which made half my fonts DISAPPEAR.
Thanks for the info and instructions about AdobeFntXX.lst alone - made this book a must have in my library.
And, that was just one small enlightened moment Aker's offered

I do graphics and own Macs from October, 1985. I passed thru all the font technologies that were done into the computer... from enlarging 72pt bitmaps and correcting them, the early times of Adobe's ATM and so on.
But --maybe I'm getting old-- with the introduction of Mac OS X, typography went almost out of control for me. Althought I do not use per se Office I need to install it to open others files... and it destroy any organizated fonts folders that you had managed,
Then, in a desperate move, I bought Zardetto's book!
And everything came back to order: clear instructions lead me in a clever and consistent way. I confess I did it twice. First time I said myself: "I'm an old macintoshian..." But then I realized that following the step-by-step instructions was more inteligent. Then, with everything in order, I was back "in control".
So, my advice --for newbies and oldies-- follow the instructions and then personalize your fonts. OK, first buy and read the book!

I wouldn't say Flash MX is for the beginner, so if you are a fairly well versed PC user, and are trying to begin working with Flash, then this book will do the job. It offers a good table of contents which helps you find the information and directions you are looking for. It offers quality step by step instructions with illustrations to follow. It will help you to create a basic flash project, and does offer some advanced techniques.

Overall, I recommend this book as a good step by step guide. Just be sure you are really ready to take on such a powerful and often complicated multimedia program before you spend the cash!

I first got this book because one of my favorite websites recommends it. I got up and running pretty fast. The book made the learning curve pretty easy to ride. The only "negative" thing I have to say is that once you're up to speed, the book just fall short of one's appetite for power. But a good beginner book overall.

This book is perfect for beginners who are just starting out. You will learn Flash MX through step-by-step visual instructions. The book is excellently organized and has perfect chapters as you move on. By the end you will grasp all the great things you can do in Flash MX. It is an excellent way to jump in to ActionScript. Every lesson has a screenshot of Flash MX and show clear steps. So, get this book and see what this book can do for you.

This book is really easy to understand and easy to go about it. If you are a newbie and need some hints on "how to do", this is the book you need. Pretty simple, efficient and pack with a punch. For me, it was breeze and just to refresh things I had learned from past versions, yet I had never put it to use until now. If you are like me, and you want to know what is new on flash mx version. Be ready to breeze through, but if you are newbie. Be ready to dig in deep.

This is an excellent book, not just because its from a Canadian author. I picked the book up about a year ago but never gave it much chance. I finally decided that I wanted to learn Flash so I began to go through the book. In 5 days I finished the entire book and I learnt so much from this books style. Instead of the way alot of books are written, where you work on a project and apply a bunch of techniques to it, this book shows you all the functions and where they apply to without all the hassle of having to create a big project to learn new concepts. Excellent book for people who are new to Flash.