Adobe Books

I have found this book to be very informative and easy to follow for a beginning student of fabric design. Photoshop has so many applications and the author of this book really streamlined the information to apply directly to what I need to learn regarding fashion/ design applications. I refer to it constantly.

Okay, this book has some great bits in it, but it's also full of a lot of "fluff." I wish it was more concise. I don't think it's worth what I paid for it. I can't say I would recommend it unless you are completely lost and want sections devoted to definitions, the textile industry, other printing methods, etc. I'm a Fibers student looking to go into the textile industry as a repeat artist, and I was hoping this book would cover more computer/program techniques. I learned better shortcuts and methods on my own than I did from this book. Do yourself a favor and find someone (or another book) that can cover Photoshop for you.

Absolutely not worth the price it is being sold for. i agree with other reviewers that half of the information is totally not required.Plus the CD's are a mess as half of your time is wasted in searching the relative images in the CD for the excercises and some of them are completely missing!!! I could not render half of the fabrics as per the instructions since as they are very unspecific & confusing.So many pages have been wasted in giving a brief of textiles which is a different subject altogether and the one who would want to use this book has to be thorough with textiles. The information on textiles also is too brief & confusing.Aslo there were too many examples & mini biographies of people who are successful CAD/Textile designers which was totally not required.I hopped & jumped & skipped throughout the book expecting something useful but in vain.I finally gave up and returned it.Please do not waste money on this book.I really would like someone to come up with a more specific and useful book for using such important softwares like Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop specifically for rendering fashion as I desperately want to learn this. I expected that this book would be a good substitute (as this is the only book i hv found till now that uses photoshop to render textiles) for the highly expensive CAD courses here in NY. But unfortunately i was thouroughly disappointed. Can someone please suggest me any other good books related to Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop for rendering fashion, textiles & prints?????Suggestions are welcome - nins25@gmail.com

This book should have been 1/2 the size and 1/2 the price. I nearly returned it, but since there are so few instructional books on Photoshop geared towards textile/surface design available on the market, I stuck it out.
I'd throw out half the content. Too much text is spent explaining the textile industry. While it is important to understand the textile trade/printing process, that's not what I wanted when I bought this book. Much of the book focuses on "Basic Design" principles, putting together a portofolio, presentation boards, the future of digital printing etc... like a Textile Design 101 class. Some people might find this helpful ... I found it infuriating.
This book is NOT about inspiration. The exercises are drab, the illustrations and sample files are plain and artless. Sometimes key information about where to look for tools is missing or mis-labeled. One section refers to a Demo plug-in to use, but it doesn't name the plug-in and there are no plug-ins found on the CD. There are product placement "advertisements" that annoy me. And the author assumes from the get-go that the "student" has access to a flatbed scanner and other expensive hardware; clearly a textbook geared towards a shared studio/lab classroom situation.
The CD is a disaster. NONE of the file folders or names referenced in the text relate to the CD content. Most of the files are there, but not in any logical order and with different file names. When the author references a file in an exercise, you can spend more time looking for the file than actually performing the exercise. There are multiple copies of some files and it's missing other files altogether. Chapter 3 is the first chapter where exercises with CD files begin, but the Chapter 3 folder is empty! There are tons of images of "Student" work that is completely uninspired and seems more like a way to get the author's favorite student "published".
This is an unsophisticated and horribly uninspired text. I kept it because there is so little available geared towards textile design.
My background is in Fine Arts with an advanced understanding of textiles including weaving, sewing, handprinting textiles and traditional croquis painting. I am very computer literate and am not afraid of software. I've never been able to merge my hands on painting etc to the digital realm and have been looking for instructional aids to help with that. I had high expectations and wanted a fairly sophisticated reference book. I feel like I'm sifting through a lot of chaff for a meager meal. I guess I'm hungry.
I'm determined to break through to learn to utilize a very sophisticated product (Photoshop) for my needs. I'll get my inspiration elsewhere. I gave this book 2 stars only because there is some value in working through the exercises which are specifically geared towards pattern and textile design.
> If you are looking for inspiration, don't buy this book.
> If you know you'll be dissuaded and frustrated by disorganized and missing references to files and tools - don't buy this book.
> If you're new to design and don't understand textiles, I'm not sure you will be well-served by the presentation of the "Basics".
> If you buy this book, glean what you can and ignore the discouraging mediocrity.

this is one of only two refrences currently avlaible on the subject. (a third is coming soon)
there are a lot of editing problems, and missing files. extremly frustrating when you are trying to work thorugh the exercises.
but, i took the basics that it offered and ran with it.

it is a pricy book, but i would recommend it (as it's cheaper then the other book available) as of now, and seen the new book. hopefully a new addition will be released minus the mistakes. so that it can be more useful refrence for those of us intrested in this subject.

i'd also like to see some information on advanced techniques. and more info on using a drawing tablet.

the title is also misleading, as all you learn is how to render textiles.

This is a great book for beginners to get the basics on what this product's capabilities. I never realized that Adobe Acrobat can do so many things! If you need to learn this product quickly, this is the book to get. As you advanced in your abilities with this product, then other books would be more beneficial.

A good "Get your feet wet" book for first time form developers. I read/scanned it in one night as I was looking for more of a "command line reference" (does my DOS programming background show?) where each topic/feature was covered in depth. I have a need to develop semi-complex java scripts forms with auto fill features for a production environment, but the needed support and answers were not here. I do not mean to knock the book as it is well written and has a good walk through methodology, but it is not a fallback "reference" book when you are in over your head in the creation process.

This is not the book one wants to learn Adobe Acrobat. The authors assume anyone using the book is already an expert in using Acrobat. The glossary is totally inadequate so that many of the terms used by the authors are greek to users. I have been in computers for over 40 years and this one of worst manuals I have ever seen. I bought another book which was of more help but still was not comprehensive enough.

I use Acrobat a lot but it has a lot of potential which I have been unable to unlock. Someone needs to write a comprehensive manual that covers every operation step by step. This book did not cut it.

I am a designer who does a lot of multi-tasking (are there any who don't?). I keep many books close at hand when I work to use as references for specific problems that may arise. I find that most of the books I own are very orderly and, therefore, an efficient use of my time.

This book, and the other "Classroom in a Book" series components, on the other hand, are completely disordered. You can never be sure where a given topic may pop up within this casual, stream-of-consciousness style. And don't expect the index to be of any assistance either; it seems to have extracted only what was of particular interest to some periodic user who would rather just do their work in MS Word.

Do yourself a favor and leave this one on the shelf. In its place pick up the "PDF Bible". Don't be intimidated by its vastness; instead, be welcomed by its ordered presentation and functional index. Other than the owners manual, The "Bible" series has proven to be an excellent primary source for me.

Adobe PDF is a very common file format, largely due to the PDF's ability to faithfully maintain the formatting of a document while offering smaller file sizes, searchable text, printability, and integration with the most popular web browsers. The availability of a PDF viewer, Adobe Acrobat Reader, for free download has played a decisive role in popularity of this file standard. I purchased Adobe Acrobat primarily to be able to create PDF files from Word documents and the like. Although Acrobat comes with a detailed manual available through the "help" menu, it took me almost a year before I actually decided to learn what one can do in Acrobat besides creating PDF files. I decided to start with the "Classroom in a book" manual since I already had positive experience with this series. Indeed, I was not disappointed. First, I discovered many advanced capabilities of Acrobat, which can make PDF format more convenient than any other format; secondly, it was a pleasure to work with the book. If you never used the Adobe "Classroom in a book" series before, the following comments may be useful:

a) the book does not contain anything that is not included in Acrobat Help; In fact, it even contains less information as it periodically referres the readers to one or another chapter of the online manual. The only purpose of this book is to help you to get a "hands-on" practical experience with the program using the example files from the enclosed CD.

b) this book is for the beginners. Acrobat is generally not as sophisticated as many other Adobe products, and this book does not even attempt to go into much detail. If you know nothing about Acrobat, you will find it helpful.

c) Unlike many computer books, this one is very carefully written and edited. The guidelines are very easy to follow both for Windows and Mac users. In this sense, it is an excellent and a very accurate tutorial.

d) most likely you will use this book only once. Later on you would rather refer to Acrobat Help than to the book since the latter one is more complete. Getting this book from the library may be an option to consider.

I have worked though many how to books, and have one pet peeve, missing steps or something left out, well this book is loaded with them, on the one hand it is so detailed, and then you are going along and something is done and not mentioned. I also found typos and errors that also added to the confusion. If I did not have a grasp on InDesign, I would not have been able to complete the exercises as shown, at times, I was digging into the screen shots to figure out what step was missed and there were a lot. As others mentioned this is not a book for people who work with Indesign in the prepress, it is for desk top publishers.

A very useful resource. Does exactly what it says on the cover. Provides useful projects relevant to the real word. Practicing them brings you a good understanding of InDesign and you feel that what you are learning has a practical application to the world of graphic design. A word of warning,some knowledge of the application is needed though, but not much.

Adobe InDesign CS@ Work by Cate Brosseau Indiano (ISBN 0-672-32802-X) is a great resource for someone like myself. InDesign is the one application in the Creative Suite that I have the least experience. That said, the first and third chapters of the book seems unnecessary. It first tries to convince you of the advantages of InDesign and chances are if you are reading the book, you have already purchased the application. The third chapter deals with converting from PageMaker or Quark - again a decision that has already been made.

The heart of the book is really the project section. It takes real world projects and takes you step by step how to create them. The projects include developing print collateral, creating an advertisement, designing a production sheet and a business brochure. This section is enhanced by an online resource, where assets used in the projects can be downloaded - so you don't have to worry about stopping and creating content while trying to learn the program. Of course, if you want to substitute own your content, no problem.

Ms. Indiano uses clear and concise language, easy to understand and follow. There are sufficient pictures included, so that you can follow the visual cues, as well as the written word. After a few sessions with this book and InDesign, you'll be up an running too!

This book is a step-by-step, by detailed step, often incoherent, crawl to creating very basic business collateral. "Draw a graphic frame to fit the upper left corner of your text box, just below the headline, to fit the first column with the following coordinates x: .5", y: 3.5". Set the width..." Get the idea?

The author manages to take the design out of InDesign by presenting examples that lack any evidence of a graphic arts background. Take a look at the "poster" for evidence. The short bio on the back of the book states that she consults "with graphic arts professionals". She should have.

If you have to design the company's annual report and have never used InDesign before, then you might be in the wrong job. In any event, this book will not get you there in twenty pages, and the place it does get you is nothing you'd want to send to any shareholders, even your mom.

Though amazon displays "Search this book!", the feature isn't functional for this title. Browse a copy somewhere before you order it, and then look first on Ebay for my one dollar copy if you still want it. (You won't.) I have never had occasion to give one star to a book and it's a very generous star.

This book serves great for beginners but also as a "refresher" for those who have been using InDesign already. Great examples, and done in a professional matter.

Let me just start by saying, that this book is great! I myself was a novice on Adobe Acrobat and mostly just used it to do simple pdf-conversion through distiller. Reading this book answered all of my questions that had build up through time. Along side I learned a lot of new stuff and cool tricks to do simple tasks in smarter ways.
The only weak spot, from my point of oppinion, is a weak chapter concerning colourmanagement and prepress, but I figure, that guys who really need that sort of info, wouldn't read this book. All in all a very good bye!

After plodding through many chapters of this book, I am totally exasperated. Not only was the book fraught with errors, but the information was, at best, inadequate. I am an indexer and a Mac user. You cannot create an index in OS X and that is not documented in the book. It is apparent that the authors, Adobe staff, never tested the instructions for the lessons on OS X. in addition, there are too many "check online for information about xxxx" references. If i wanted the information online, I would not have purchased a book. The waste of money is small compared to the waste of my time. One star is definitely a high rating for this book.

This was a great buy. I've learned a lot in just the 1st 70 pages. It paid for itself!

I'd never returned a book before, but this one certainly deserved the extra milage. The book plodded along (maybe because of the classroom approach), but what finally convinced me to return it was Page 290, "Creating eBooks". After ONE page of self-evident information, the very last paragraph says, "For more information on designing and creating eBooks, See How to Create Adobe PDF files for eBooks ... available online ......." The problem of course is that a book that lists for [money] should furnish the information. But what got the book its second pair of walking legs is that the referenced book isn't available... Probably doesn't exist at all. Pick another one. You can spend your money better.

Acrobat 5 is a great product, but Adobe has done a lousy job of communicating its many valuable features and how to use it. Totally unstructured and unintelligible, this book is an example of what happens when computer programmers attempt to communicate in English.

I recently participated in an Acrobat focus group made up of people who use the product in their daily work. Everyone agreed that it's very useful in a wide range of applications, but they all had real difficulties learning how to use it. This book only adds to the problem.

Although I enjoy reading reference books (yes, I need a life) I found this one to be rather dry. Acrobat is a powerful application and version 5 is actually quite fun to use, but I didn't find this book particularly insightful about things I didn't already know about Acrobat. Still, I refer to this book occasionally when I become forgetful, and for that I will keep this on my desk, at the ready. If you've tinkered with Acrobat and you're ready to become more of a power user, this book will get you up to speed with little pain.

I have basic Acrobat PDF skills and was looking for a Sam's Learn Acrobat in 24 hours or Acrobat for Dummies type book, but not one of those really fluffy, basic, picture story books. This is the closest I could find and it isn't close. Disappointing - crammed and densely packed with information, I found this book difficult to navigate and use, and similar to using Acrobat itself--so you might as well just muddle through the program and its help files directly rather than muddle through this book. It may be good for mature intermediate or advanced Adobe practitioners as a reference or review, but if you're looking for a teach yourself book along the lines of the SAMs, ...for Dummies, or the Microsoft press books, my suggestion is don't bother with this Acrobat PDF Bible. I'll try to avoid using Acrobat until SAMs or some other publisher comes out with a self-teaching guide.

I am an Adobe Certified Expert / Adobe Certified Training Provider and have been training individuals and corporate groups nationwide on Adobe Acrobat since version 3.0. The evolution of Adobe Acrobat throughout the years has been truly amazing and the need for comprehensive reference manuals to explain features and workflows are a necessity as this product continues to evolve.

Ted Padova's Adobe Acrobat 5 PDF Bible meets the needs of users at all levels. It has an indepth section covering the use of Adobe Acrobat Reader (for the majority of people in the world) as well detailed sections covering all the major components of the full version - Distiller, Acrobat (and its multitude of plugins), and Catalog. I believe the book is well-organized and has many great workflow ideas as well as tips and techniques to give even the most savvy user new ideas.

To counter those who give this reference manual a low score I suggest that they become better acquainted with the product by first using Adobe Acrobat 5.0 Classroom in a Book (CIB). After you have completed the self-paced lessons in the CIB, PDF Bible will seem less overwhelming.

My only complaint with this manual is that there are a few errors in terms of labeling the application window for Adobe Acrobat 5.0 and since this book was written during the beta phase for Adobe Acrobat 5.0, it misses out on some of the new developments from Adobe - new plugins, Adobe Acrobat Approval, Adobe Acrobat Distiller Server, Adobe Acrobat Messenger, and Adobe Document Server. For those who wish to learn more about these products, just visit Adobe's website and click on the Products link.

I'm also an Acrobat ACE, and was looking forward to reading what was billed as 'the definitive book on the subject'.

In fact I was more than a little disappointed: the book has a definite feel of being 'padded out' with unnecessary information and repetition, and despite its size I felt that some areas were skimmed over.

I note that the author's range of expertise is quite wide, which might explain why I got the impression that the author knew more about the theory of the product than the practicals. In particular, he makes the serious mistake of assuming that in Acrobat 5 the job settings for distilling are shared between the Distiller app itself and the Distiller Printer driver.

In fact, they are entirely separate; this was a (major) change from Acrobat 4, and the fact that he has not picked up on this major feature made me begin to question some of his other pronouncements.

Rather than quibble about a number of other small errors I noticed, I would make the general comment that Mr Padova is not great at explaining concepts. While reading his rather turgid prose, I was thinking to myself that if I - as a certified Acrobat person - was having to re-read paragraphs, a new user dipping into the text was going to have problems.

Bit of a curate's egg - too dense for the new or average user, and falls short of being the Bible that an advanced user requires.

The author did a great job of putting together a comprehensive reference guide for Acrobat 5. Its been very useful to me when I needed further clarification on a particular topic. The information set forth in the book is complete, organized and helpful! However, the index is definitely lacking and could have been a lot better. The index is not very comprehensive at all, making it difficult to actually find what I am looking for. Overall, I recommend this to anyone looking for a good Acrobat 5 reference guide.

This book gives an introduction to almost all features of illustrator and how to use it. Using this book in conjunction with extensive personal practice and experimentation with the program will take you a long way toward mastering the software.

This book is structured exactly as you would imagine from the title. It's great for looking up a solution quickly when you get stuck. I felt that I needed more "Instruction", being a novice ... so I bought "Exploring Illustrator CS2 (Design Exploration Series) to go with it ... together they are great for the beginner! Both Highly recomended.

At first glance at this book, I really liked how the book was formatted by numbers and "quick tips". This made me feel like learning illustrator would be short and to the point. I liked the screenshots and shortcuts that were included and I felt like the first few chapters (or "tips") were a good way to get introduced to each topic in a quick and easy way. The reading in this book is good. It is easy to follow and straightforward. The reference guide is plus too!

But, for me personally--I did not find this book extremely helpful to my knowledge of Adobe Illustrator. I think it would be great for a REAL Illustrator novice--someone who has absolutely NO prior Adobe Illustrator experience because it explains to the Illustrator student how each step should be taken in a thorough and explanatory way. For someone who has had experience with Illustrator--you might be looking more for a tooltip book like the QuickStart guides that Peachpit press puts out. But for the true Illustrator novice--I think this book can be really beneficial for you!

One last point, I think that I would've liked to see more examples and images of Illustrator-created work as examples for each of the tools that were explained and expounded on in each chapter. This is what helps inspire me as a designer, seeing other people's work and seeing how I can do something similar with an ordinary Illustrator tool.

Again, for a beginner who is just starting out--this book is to the point, well written and can help you be on the road to learning Illustrator in an easy & topically driven way.

I bought Illustrator CS2 a couple months ago and had never used the program before. I have used Photoshop for years, so I was at least familiar with the general Adobe layout. This "100 Essential Techniques" book sounded like the perfect place to start, but I soon discovered mistakes and omissions as I went through the tutorials. And as a novice, ANY mistake or omission makes the difference between quick learning and total confusion. "Did I read that wrong? Am I not looking in the right place?" No, the book is wrong.

For example, #24 is called "Clipping with Masks". It's supposed to tell you how to use one object as a shape mask for another object. Here are the COMPLETE instructions for this section:

"The components of a clipping mask are the object to be masked and the masking object. You first create the object to be masked. Then you move the masking object on top of the object to be masked."

It fails to mention the important part about clicking "Object | Clipping Mask | Make". This I discovered on my own. Other sections (example #31) use the wrong terminology. In this section they used "Lasso tool" when they should have said, "Magic Wand." If I hadn't already been familiar with these two tools from Photoshop, I would have wondered why their instructions didn't work.

To summarize, this book isn't great for anyone. It's too simplistic for anyone who's used Illustrator, but has too many mistakes to be 100% useful to beginners. If you end up buying this book, buy it used and know that if you get lost reading the instructions, it's most likely the fault of the authors.

Yes, as stated in other reviews, this is a book for those new to Illustrator. Simple, to the point, and clearly written, this book takes the dread and frustration out of using a program that has such an extremely steep learning curve. There is a bit of redundancy when using this book cover-to-cover, but the chapters can also be used as stand-alone reference material in such fashion.

I found this book average. There are a lot of Photoshop books on the market and this one didn't really stand out in any way. I totally agree with the person that called this book flaky. I don't think a book should tell you you're getting images on a website or CD and then just not include them. That's not very professional.

"Great Creative Title"? Not quite.

Just to resolve the website issue...when you access premierpress.com you get shunted to thompson course ware. If you go under graphic design titles the book is there with all the relevant images in a downloadable format...you don't even have to buy the book! Judging by the high quality of some of the images the book is probably pretty good (haven't read it) and you can get it now for a few bucks at auction websites as everyone had moved on to Pshop CS

The companion webpage for this book is www.premierpressbooks.com and you merely feed in either the title OR the author and the web page for downloading the .psd files pops right up. Premier Press is INDEED in business, and most reputable.

I seem to always purchase books that exceed my grasp.. and this book is no exception. It is inspirational on a number of levels and the list price ($49) is something you can get around by purchasing it elsewhere (like Amazon.com or www.abebooks.com)..

At last a title that give me creative ideas that I can use on a daily basis. Andy seems to understand Photoshop on the user's level... I'd purchase any title with his name on on the cover.

Andy's book is a great creative title... I'm not sure about the review called "Flaky." His point about not having a companion Web site is true, however, I found out that the publishing company that produced the title, got bought out by another one, and the Web site was never created. The author (or new publisher) should have corrected the problem, but that doesn't detract from the title.

The book gave me some great ideas on working with Photoshop in ways that I can use; it didn't dazzle me with special effects that look cool, but most people would never use.

Flaky, seemed to think that anyone that writes a good review for this book as either a friend of the author, or working for the publisher... well, I'm just a Photoshop graphics artist and animator who has been full-time in the profession for over 12 years. I'm constantly looking for new and creative ways to use the program, and Andy's book fits the bill for me.

If my opinion means anything, then I highly recommend this book.

Not as helpful as I thought it would be. I am trying to get the red eye out of my photos and it had only a brief description of how to do it. Actually, the adobe 5. doesn't work as well as my photoshop elements 2.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 A-Z: Tools and features illustrated ready reference

Very worthwhile purchase

I was a bit annoyed that between the time I ordered this book and the time it arrived the new version of Elements was released. The book is well illustrated and easy to find instructions by subject.

Philip Andrews writes great books and this is no exception. It covers about everything in Photoshop Elements 5 in a nutshell. It is a really great reference book--easy to find answers to questions as you are working--both written and visual. I have his advanced book and it is wonderful, but this is the one to keep close by the computer for reference.

The book gives you a lot of useful information. A LOT. But it's finding the information that's almost impossible. There is no index. As for the table of contents, well, that consists of a list 27 Step-by-Step techniques. As for the rest of the information, you better know exactly what you're looking for and what it's called or you might be looking a really long time. I really should have gone to the bookstore and researched my book before I bought it at Amazon, because now, this book does nothing more than collect dust on my bookshelf.

I have only had this book for two days so feel a review at this time is a little premature. I spent several hours last night going through it and found many features I am looking forward to trying since Adobe Photoshp Elements 5.0 is new to me. At 77 years old I find I learn best by doing and am looking forward to trying the new features shown in this book.

I started wioth Photoshop Element version onme and have updated ever since tom the newest version.

I have found Photoshop CS too expensive and too much info for what I need as a photograopher.

Therefore Photoshop Elements is just the right product for me.

This is the latest of Philip Andrew's series of books covering Photoshop Elements, now at Version 5, and fully updated, is aimed at those who are new to digital imaging and the software. One of the many strengths of the book is its "backward compatibility"; that is to say, you can use this book, even if you have a previous version of the software. This is achieved by stating clearly at the start of each section what the commands are for versions 1 through to 5. The book is divided into15 Chapters, covering everything from an overview of digital imaging and the software to creating a web photo gallery. In between each of the following topics and more is covered: Getting your pictures into Elements, tonal control, retouching techniques, making and using selections, organising your photos with tags, understanding and using layers, working with text, using painting tools, creating panoramas, preparing images for the web and printing, making creations. A further Chapter contains 12 "real world" projects that can be followed step-by-step to further hone your skills. There is also a useful companion website where there are further downloadable resources and all the photos used in the book are available to download and practice on. In summary, this is an excellent book that I commend to anyone interested in getting the most from the software. Philip Andrews has a clear, concise and easy style, and manages to explain complex terms in an easy to understand way. This, combined with great full colour screen shots and clear step-by-step instructions makes this a must for any Photoshop Elements user.

If you learn by doing, this book is not for you. I have recently gone from PSE 2.0 to PSE 5.0 and really needed to learn the new features. When I bought PSE 2.0, I also bought "50 Fast Digital Photo Techniques". It was a wonderful book. It included a CD of photos used by the book, so the reader could start with the original photo and follow the book step-by-step to end up with the final image. The book showed the "before" and "after" and all of the steps in between. That is what I had in mind when I purchased this book. What a letdown. Some of the sample pictures that this book uses are available at their website, but the book does not indicate when to use their picture and specifically which sliders to manipulate and to what value to obtain the final result. So it does little more than explain what each of the features do. You can sit on your couch and read it. No `real-world' applications. Don't waste your money on this one.

I am new to elements and I needed a guide to learn all the ins and outs of the software. This book is not it. I cant tell you who the target audience is but it is not the novice user. There are NO clear instructions in this book, just a lot of verbage from a guy who wanted to fill pages.

I'm a graphic design student that is delving into the complex world of motion graphics, and I thought this book was convoluted and overly detailed. I fully acknowledge that I'm a beginner and tend to be more creative than technical, but I felt that perhaps the book could have been written with readers like myself in mind.

Trying to get through this was like my asking for directions somewhere, and having the person tell me seven different ways to get to the location. The fact that he would take a method to do something in the program and explain three different ways to do it just made me feel more confused.

I own an InDesign book made by Adobe that is a lot shorter and has a lot less text, and learned a lot faster just by using it as a reference and working on independent projects. I feel that this particular book has so much text in it, it would be hard to use it as a reference.

This is a grate book, explaining every thing about after effects very deeply but in simple ways anyone can understand.
Also it has a lot of side bars explaining basic but valuable terms from the video/animation world that every animator should now about.
I think every one who will read this book will get all the tools he needs to become an after effects animator

And thank you very much Antony Bolante

I found his book not intended to learn from. It is a great reference book to get you up to speed on what things are and where they are located. Example, whats motion math and where are the parameters. If you want to learn how to inpliment motion math into your work, you need to get another book. I would not be learning AE without this book. I hate reading the adobe pdf's. Also for (...)how can you complain. If your seriously interested in AE then you should have about every piece of info you can your hands on.

Thi Book is excellent for those who just want to get Affter Effects up and running and quickly jump into the application. It is not, however, going to teach you how to do stunning special effects, as this book is not geared for that purpose.

What this book does do however, is organize the various features of After Effects into an easy to read, quick to lookup format. This book wastes no time at all in getting you to find out what the heck that weird looking tiny button on a particular window does....as the title implies...this is a VISUAL instruction guide to After Effects.

If you are already familiar with After Effects and instead are looking for a book to teach you how to make amazing footage with it, then this is NOT the book you want.

If you are however, totally new to After effects and want to just get some darned footage, graphics and sound loaded into the application and apply some basic animated effects to these elements then this IS the book for you.

The main problem with After Effects is it's complex interface. The interface is very non-intuitive and extremely user unfriendly....that is until you know what the heck you are doing in it. This is where this book comes in. I was able to pick up this book and in about 20 mins pretty much know the basics of what the heck I was doing in After Effects. I am one of these people who hates long boring labourious explanations for simplistic concepts....in other words WHAT DOES THIS BUTTON DO and tell me in like one paragraph not a whole bloody chapter....that's exactly what this book does. It completely cuts to the chase in plain simple, easy to understand terms.

If you want to learn creative techniques and shapen your blending, composition and editing skills then stay far away from this book and go by a book for that purpose. But if you have just loaded up After Effects for the first time and are sitting there staring at it wondering why the damned application will not allow you to change the duration of footage, or how the heck to apply a rotation over time (instead of instantaneously) then this book will help you with those basic concepts and it will help you FAST!

And finally, cheers to the Author who made great efforts NOT to jam the book full of techie talk. Thank you so much for skipping the BS and using Plain English to explain things.

Thi Book is excellent for those who just want to get Affter Effects up and running and quickly jump into the application. It is not, however, going to teach you how to do stunning special effects, as this book is not geared for that purpose.

What this book does do however, is organize the various features of After Effects into an easy to read, quick to lookup format. This book wastes no time at all in getting you to find out what the heck that weird looking tiny button on a particular window does....as the title implies...this is a VISUAL instruction guide to After Effects.

If you are already familiar with After Effects and instead are looking for a book to teach you how to make amazing footage with it, then this is NOT the book you want.

If you are however, totally new to After effects and want to just get some darned footage, graphics and sound loaded into the application and apply some basic animated effects to these elements then this IS the book for you.

The main problem with After Effects is it's complex interface. The interface is very non-intuitive and extremely user unfriendly....that is until you know what the heck you are doing in it. This is where this book comes in. I was able to pick up this book and in about 20 mins pretty much know the basics of what the heck I was doing in After Effects. I am one of these people who hates long boring labourious explanations for simplistic concepts....in other words WHAT DOES THIS BUTTON DO and tell me in like one paragraph not a whole bloody chapter....that's exactly what this book does. It completely cuts to the chase in plain simple, easy to understand terms.

If you want to learn creative techniques and shapen your blending, composition and editing skills then stay far away from this book and go by a book for that purpose. But if you have just loaded up After Effects for the first time and are sitting there staring at it wondering why the damned application will not allow you to change the duration of footage, or how the heck to apply a rotation over time (instead of instantaneously) then this book will help you with those basic concepts and it will help you FAST!

And finally, cheers to the Author who made great efforts NOT to jam the book full of techie talk. Thank you so much for skipping the BS and using Plain English to explain things.