Desktop Books

Color separations are a complex area, at best. This book was clearly the best in the market for clear concise information that will not go out of date. It is not focused on any platform or any specific Photoshop version. Do not hesitate to order it. I have been teaching top end desktop publishing and digital printing since 1991. I still use this book in my classes.

this book is fantastic!
Miles Southworth, having worked years at Rochester Institute of Technology, influenced many lives. One such life was that of my father, Jayant Marathe, who was sited in some of the chapters, and assisted in writing this fantastic piece of literature, which is STILL read today at several established universities.

Just goes to show: some pieces of work are timeless!
Kudos, good show, and I hope the next generation is around to read this as well!

Thomas Niemann has written one of those rare, well focused, no nonsense little books for those who need to get into Firewoks 4 quickly. The style is direct and to the point, with each topic covered in just the right depth. If you're a beginner to Fireworks, you can't go wrong with this one.

The book takes a practical approach of how to do it and gives the reasons why. It covers imaging for printing presses, inkjet printers, web, animation, cd/dvd, movies, and cmyk output. In fact, the output determines choices when inputing the image. Included are how to use controls for brightness, contast, histograms, color correction, color casts, sharpening techinques, and layering to name a few. Many examples are presented. Types of paper used to print on and how to work with a press to get the correct color is also presented. The details are here. A must for anyone wanting to learn how and why and a good reference for the professional.

Trapping is probably the least-understood portion of desktop publishing today. Lawler's book goes through just about every single bit of information you need - with easy-to-understand illustrations. Whether you're trapping in your application, or by using your RIP, this is an invaluable guide that will help put your knowledge right up there with the best pressmen.

The computational Aspects of General Relativity, by J. Frauendiener, is one of many rather interesting papers one would find in this book. This book covers the 2nd Russian-German Advanced Research Workshop which took place in March of 2005. The papers that were presented cover the applications of High Performance Computing (HPC) in research areas such as Fluid Mechanics and computational Physics. As one would expect, the underlying pattern of the types of problems faced by these area are the same as any other, mainly they must be parallelizable, but the effort taken by various researchers to essentially breakup a given problem is truly remarkable.

Particle methods in powder technology, by B. Henrich, et. al., is another paper which the authors use the HPC methods to simulate compaction, sintering and filling of a dispersed powder. The simulation, as one would expect, uses a molecular dynamics method which in turn follows Newton's equations of motions for simulating the time evolution of particles. As one would expect, the sheer number of simulations that must take place is simply staggering, and an HPC is required to get the job done is a reasonable amount of time.

There are a number of other paper that talk about the applications of HPC in Fluid Dynamics or Mechanics, but I was very interested in H. Brunst, et. al. paper, Parallel applications on large scale systems: getting insights, which the authors talk about the "scalability properties on moderns parallel computer architectures". The authors evaluate BenchIT, which is used for evaluation and presentation of performance data. BenchIT is used to compare difference architectures and programming languages against each other to determine their efficiency and performance numbers. BenchIT can be used for simply estimating what the gain would be if for example one programming language is used over the other given certain scenarios. It is a great tool for ROI (return on investments) calculations.

U. Kuster, et. al. paper, Sustaining performance in future vector processors, is simply fascinating! The authors present current performance numbers from a number of platforms, and tie the performance to the software architecture - which is very much true. Teraflops/sec performance is desired, but the authors argue that with current processor architecture, the only way to achieve such performance numbers one much re-architect the way we tackle the problem from the software architecture perspective. The authors then close the loop with possible improvements to the processor architecture that can aid in making the software design a bit simpler. The goal of this paper is show that software and hardware are more tied together than ever, and in order to "go to the next level", both need to work together instead of dispersed components.

I was very surprised at the quality of the papers that are in this text. As an architect that deals with Grid and HPC systems on daily basis, I found this text very informative and educational.

I'd really liked this book as it presents the latest work being done by the top Animation Studios. It provides a deep insight into the subject and is really an encouraging work

The collaborative effort of computer animation experts Frederic I. Parke and Keith Waters, Computer Facial Animation is a fascinating, in-depth, and thoroughly "user friendly" technical guide to the art and craft of three-dimensional computer animation, especially as applied to faces and expressions. An in-depth, exhaustive, and scholarly "how-to" text, Computer Facial Animation is an impressively comprehensive, 365-page textbook which is especially recommended for advanced students of graphics, mathematics, and programming.

Computer Graphics And Animation: History, Careers, Expert Advice by computer expert and academician Garth Gardner is an extensive and informatively accessible tour through a variety of different artistic careers related to computers that are available for an aspiring computer graphics experts to pursue. Of special interest is the advice on becoming a CG Artist drawn from interviews with ground breaking experts from such industry powerhouses as Rhythm & Hues, Pixar, and Industrial Light & Magic. From the history of computer animation to practical advice on training and education for this competitive field, Computer Graphics And Animation is an excellent survey and a highly recommended primer for anyone interested in learning more about this exciting vocation.

This book almost kills two birds with one stone. This book is a great introduction into computer graphics, animation, mathematics, 3D rendering. It also serves at the same time a good way to learn some pretty good C++ code. I do not know if there will be a new edition but if you can find this book, grab it at any price.