Desktop Books

Well, it's over 4 years since I "interviewed myself"about this book. Lots has changed. Most importantly, that email addressdoesn't work; better is felix@nlightning.com, and to see what I'm doing now, start at my home page (not recently updated since I've been busy with eConstructors, an Internet startup.

All the books I've seen that try to explain the business of desktop publishing have been too general and pretty uniformly unhelpful. This one, Desktop Publishing Success, is different. Filled with the real-life dtp experiences of the two authors and many others interviewed, the book will give the fledgling dtp business a good chance at success. What the dtp entrepreneur needs in starting out is very detailed information in the day-to-day running of the business; this is just what this book provides. It could be better only by a new, updated edition.

"Developing SGML DTD's" is both a great book to get up to speed on SGML and a reference book for you SGML guru's. Eve and Jeanne deal with many of the complexities of SGML, but in a way that anyone can understand. I particulary liked the sections on managing an SGML project, and Training and Support. Hats off to Eve and Jeanne on a job well done !

The company I work for threw me into the arduous task of not only setting standards for our document data but to manage the entire process of an SGML implementation. A dream job for a technical writer? Maybe but I must have been delusional!

An Arbortext consultant, who was concerned for my sanity gave me this book as a wedding gift and advised me to read it on my very short honeymoon. By doing this, I would hopefully have some background and be able to participate effectively as a team member during the data modeling and system design with Arbortext. I had been putting in many long hours on the project already, had a good understanding of databases and had a better than average understanding of single sourcing concepts, Therefore, I felt I knew enough to get through the tasks without doing this reading. I DID skim through some of it on the plane but failed to read anywhere near enough.

The book is a complete cookbook on how to put together a data modeling team and how to complete the process.

So what's in the book that's so great? The book has a very good review of SGML concepts in general. Since the author loves to cook you will be treated to some excellent recipes while reviewing what you already know and learning the processes! You will understand what a good DTD is, why you need one, who the people you need are, and how to get the work done. You will also find out about the pitfalls in the design process and some ways to avoid them.

You'll learn how to perform a needs analysis and develop DTD requirements. In this process you will find ELM tree diagrams useful and will learn how to both read and design these equivalents of program flowcharts which become very useful documentation of your work. You will learn the importance of setting naming conventions and of documenting every single step.

Read this book BEFORE you start your first SGML or XML development project! Follow the concepts religiously and use the suggestions. You will save time and dollars in the long run and that's what it's really all about.

I have attended several of Mr. Giorgianni's tutorials on color management in recent years and have found him to be an outstanding instructor. His book brings into focus the complex issues in color management and explains them all with unparalled insight. I'm sure that this was a very difficult book to write and produce. The authors and the publisher deserve the thanks of the digital imaging community.

I am the author of eight books, and my latest one is on digital imaging. In a word, I find Digital Color Management astounding - both in scope and in clarity. The writing is superb and the material is beautifully illustrated. I believe this book clearly reaffirms Kodak researchers as a prescient within the imaging industry. My only criticism is that this book was not available while I conducted my latest research. If you are involved in any aspect of contemporary imaging technology, not having this book places you at a distinct disadvantage. Thank goodness not too many books like this come along - it is enough to give any author pause, if not despair, as to what a technical book should be.

On va en ligne, pour faire des photos, des graphiques, et des copies. Car l'ordinateur donne aux artistes les couleurs toujours voulues. Les images se copient fidelement, de l'ecran a l'imprimeuse. Les couleurs se montrent le mieux, surtout si le noir est le quatrieme encre d'impression et si les points sont elliptiques, sur les plaques, les papiers et les colorants de la haute qualite. Reussir a dessiner a l'aide de l'ordinateur, ca se voit par les exemples dans tout le livre. Quant a moi, ce sont tres bien faits les coups de brosse crayeux dans le portrait de la jeune fille, et les tetes et les terrains sculptes au style de l'ile de Paques.

DIGITAL COLOUR IN GRAPHIC DESIGN works when drawing, painting, photoediting, and 3-D print the way you want. Because scanners and monitors work colors differently than desktop printers and offset presses, mapping can pass colors correctly along calibrated color handlers. Color management and matching systems can bring about accurately printed screen images. The 16.7 million digital palette prints best from 21-inch non-interlaced monitors onto dye sublimation desktop printers and calibrated offset presses working with black as a fourth process ink for better shadow density and overall contrast, with elliptical instead of round dots, and with quality colorants, paper and plates. Ken Pender gives striking examples, such as chalk brush icicles to his ice maiden portrait of his daughter, impasto sweeping brushstrokes to a cloned Photo CD image, and Easter Island type carving and sculpting to a polyhedron head and terrain. So the author is interesting to read along with Veruschka Gotz's COLOR AND TYPE FOR THE SCREEN, Steven Heller and Daniel Drennan's THE DIGITAL DESIGNER, Michael Leary et al.'s WEB DESIGNER'S GUIDE TO TYPOGRAPHY, and Michael J. Sullivan's MAKE YOUR SCANNER A GREAT DESIGN AND PRODUCTION TOOL.

Unfortunatly I arrived at Virginia Commonwealth University's graphic design program after Phil Meggs had passed away. His legacy still lives on. Rob Carter on the other hand has been my professor. He is a great man who pushes his students into experimenting and becoming comfortable with their own styles of design. He is by no means a "stuffy" guy. I have some of their books and I don't have one problem with them at all.

By the way, this book is a good one!

The Digital Designer is a quality publication , plus it covers enough ground to be useful in all of the classes we teach, so students going through the program will probably keep it and use it in several classes.

Your text is written in a friendly, accessible tone, and is a relief from some of the stuffy "Design is the Center of the Universe" books out there. As an example stuffy books are anything by Stephen Heller, Phil Meggs, or Rob Carter.

Their books are really good, of course, but frankly too focused on defining design as an official profession. Their books to me always seem like they are stiffly trying to define design as a formal, codified, yet creative event.

You seem to have achieved that friendly informative tone with ease. Kudos to you on your well resolved text. Frankly, this book is more useful to our program than any Rob Carter book, because of its accessibility.

If you want to start with and understand digital image processing from its basic, this is the right book. Without too much maths it gets you to the point of what can be done, and how it can be done. It helped me to achieve a basic understanding from the zero level.

This older book is an excellent gentle introduction to digital image processing for those who have not yet had calculus, or for those who want to understand the basics before taking on the more daunting task of reading and understanding something like Gonzales & Woods, which is the standard graduate image processing text. The book begins with the basics of the various color spaces and how images are perceived by the human vision system. From that point, the chapters are grouped into the types of image transformations. Formulas are explained either graphically or with very simple mathematical notation. Before and after pictures are provided for each transformation. In chapter five, the author goes into some introductory computer vision and object recognition techniques. The handling of morphological processing is exceptional. The chapter on image compression does a good basic job of getting its ideas across to the reader. However, only the most basic compression techniques are explained in detail such as truncation and Huffman coding. JPEG and motion compression are just verbally described, due to the introductory nature of this text. More recent compression methods such as those involving wavelets are omitted. Part four of the book, "Image Operation Studies", is effective at hammering home what was discussed in the first three parts of the book. In part four, the author describes the algorithmic implementation of 39 of the image transformations described in the book, with the resulting images. This makes for an excellent summary and review for the student. The software on the book's companion disk has long ago become obsolete, but the ideas presented in the book are clear and great for any beginner in the field.

I am a professional portait and fine art photographer. I have used the book since it was first published and have found it to be invaluable when writing or explaining some of the value added advantages of digital imaging. P.S. The individual who only read about the book should try reading it. If his attention span is long enough.

It is invaluable when writing articles and helping customers.

Keep up the good work !!

When is the next edition coming out?

This is simply the best book on digital retouching that I've seen! Some of the other books look slick, but when you get down to it, all they provide are a series of quick tips on how to fix particular problems. This book has those tips, too, but the author goes much deeper into explaining why these techniques are necessary, and exactly how they work. Instead of handing me a fish, Busch has taught me how to fish! When faced with a particular problem not covered in this or the other books, I now know enough to be able to handle it myself. Great approach!

The book looks at all kinds of digital retouching and compositing techniques, written especially from the photographer's viewpoint. Everything works with Photoshop, and all illustrations are in full color so it's easy to see exactly how the steps work as well as the final results.

This is the second book I've purchased from this author, and I find all his books to be both informative and fun (the lesson on how to convert superhero NoCopyright Man's uniform from color to an accurate black and white version is hilarious and worth the price of the book alone!) I learned a lot about photography, Photoshop, retouching, and compositing from this book. I recommend it highly.

Mr. David Busch has written a clear and concise referenceguide and tutorial. Equipped with a photographic background, the author effectively points out the differences between the darkroom and the computer. This is very helpful in understanding the why's as well as the how's in using Photoshop.

This text was written as a companion to an earlier book, Photoshop 7: The Photographers Guide. The author decided to take three chapters from that book and expand on them. This book is the result. You do not need to read his first book in order to follow this one. That is a tribute to the clarity in this book.

As a matter of fact I didn't even use the CD included. I was able to apply all of the chapter tutorials on my own source material! if you already have an over-all guide to Photoshop and you are looking for texts that address specific capabilities than you should consider buying David Busch's Digital Retouching and Compositing. I guarantee your skills will improve.

This book is amazing. I work with layouts everyday of my life and was stuck in the same postion in my job for years. After reading this book, my layouts improved so much that I have recently been appointed to administrative exec., as opposed to an assistant. I couldn't thank the author enough.

This is a great guide, whether you are a beginner or intermediate designer/printer/publisher. All the basics of type and hints for QuarkXPress. You can not go wrong!

I feel really lucky to have stumbled across this book. It is not Lingo heavy, but tells you all the little tricks to making Director work for you, including what is the best movie format for your target audience, how to mask movies, how to control sound with simple commands, and much more. The author has a genuine enthusiasm for his subject matter, and he plainly has a lot of experience in designing multimedia interfaces with Director. His advice is straight from the field, and that's invaluable. His generous sharing of experience steers you away from frustrating mistakes that would otherwise drive you crazy. This book tells you all the cool, juicy stuff you need to know to make presentations with Director. You will not become a Lingo God, but if you are a beginner, you will advance to intermeadiate and borderline advanced levels with the knowledge gained from this book. And the author makes it all seem so easy - which it is!

This is a great book for web and multimedia developers. I have been using Flash and Dreamweaver, but saw a demo on what Director can do for the web. Although this book cover more than developing for the web, there's a ton of information to build the coolest interactive Shockwave sites. This book was extremely easy to follow. The section about the games and how to build them quickly was amazing. This book is worth getting.