Macintosh Books

This book is great. As director/video-editor, and wanted to know more about colorgrading, this book realy helpt me through in creative and technique-way. Your new to colorgrading? This is your book!

color correction is an art.

color correction is creative.

color correction is technical.

Perhaps THE best thing about this book is that it combines all of the above. As a working colorist this book has provided validation to techniques that I use and has taught me new techniques.

I picked up a copy of this book just after Walter Murch and Sean Cullen's appearance at a LAFCPUG meeting last October. At the time I thought I was buying a techdork's guide to FCP that would help me optimize my system and get it flying, but it turned out to be so much more ...

Optimizing Your Final Cut Pro System is a far more comprehensive book than its title would imply. It his a handbook of how-tos and valuable get-it-done information that make it a must-have for anyone assisting on a show using Final Cut Pro, or whose job involves supporting FCP and integrating FCP workstations into Networked environments.

That the book has the feel of an Assistant's reference should come as no real surprise. Sean Cullen, one of the lead authors of the book, has been Walter Murch's Assistant (now Associate Editor) for about a dozen years. During this time he has been responsible for convincing Murch to make the leap over to Final Cut Pro for Cold Mountain, and taking up the mantle of Final Cut Pro evangelist to the editing community at large. (The struggles and successes Murch, Cullen, and the rest of the Cold Mountain editorial team are chronicled in Charles Koppelman's book, Behind the Seen: How Walter Murch Edited Cold Mountain Using Apple's Final Cut Pro and What This Means for Cinema. An excellent read that is also available from Amazon.) This successful effort lead to the Murch and Cullen using FCP on the 2005 Sam Mendes film, Jarhead.

The first six chapters of the book are called "Using Final Cut Pro in Real World Workflows", which details offline and online workflows for both film and video projects including project setups, organization, and project distribution. This section is loaded with helpful bits of information that can help the assistant avoid many common project mishaps.

Chapter four has a very good, hands-on, Cinema Tools tutorial, which takes you through the process of importing a Flex file into the Cinema Tools Database, Importing Clips, Synching Media with the Cinema Tools database and cut list generation.

The rest of the book's eight hundred plus pages address topics ranging from system configuration and optimization to networking and Xsan Implementation, and concludes with over a hundred pages of information on troubleshooting your Final Cut Pro system.

Although I strongly endorse Peachpit's Apple Pro Training Series (having learned the fundamentals of DVD Studio Pro and Shake from other books in the series) in general, Optimizing Your Final Cut Pro System is a must-have for any professional editor or engineer using FCP on the job.

First off, finding everything contained in this book will take you on a
very long surfing safari, plus many trips to your friendly
neighborhood post facility. Save yourself some time and money,
learn how to be an expert in your field, and spend more time doing
what you love.

Second, this is Apple-certified courseware, which means that it
comes in the regular APTS lesson-based format, with lesson reviews
at the end of each chapter, and material on the DVD-ROM. There are
now instructor-led classes devoted to the subject, as more and more
facilities switch from another platform to Final Cut Pro, or move up
from miniDV to the broadcast world. Now's your chance to learn from
the masters and become one yourself.

All in all, this is one of the best books of its kind that I've read. It fits
right in with the Apple philosophy of giving power to the users. I
recommend it to all you editors who not only need to know how the
system works, but why it works that way.

This book opened my eyes. it's worth every penny of 225 pounds. I only wish i had found it sooner. How else would i have discovered the intricate plan apple had for the world. To unleash it's media hardware across the planet like a virus infecting us all. But don't worry now i know because this book told me so. So beware apple your master plan has been revealed. The resistance begins here. Join me fellow review readers, open your eyes to to the evil that is apple by buying this book. And after the ipod has obliterated the rest of the naive human race and only we remain on what is left of our planet. You can thank me for making you buy this book.
Cheerio
until we meet again

This book opened my eyes. it's worth every penny of 225 pounds. I only wish i had found it sooner. How else would i have discovered the intricate plan apple had for the world. To unleash it's media hardware across the planet like a virus infecting us all. But don't worry now i know because this book told me so. So beware apple your master plan has been revealed. The resistance begins here. Join me fellow review readers, open your eyes to to the evil that is apple by buying this book. And after the ipod has obliterated the rest of the naive human race and only we remain on what is left of our planet. You can thank me for making you buy this book.
Cheerio
until we meet again

I bought this CD when it first came out and I absolutely love it. I have referred to it often. Dr. Probst is well spoken and one of the best Lasik surgeons in the country! I recommend hearing him in person, his lecture is full of facts and honesty, not like others! He performed my lasik and I have never been happier. I refer all my patients to him and I have never had a complaint.
Tremendous CD

I bought this CD when it first came out and I absolutely love it. I have referred to it often. Dr. Probst is well spoken and one of the best Lasik surgeons in the country!...I recommend hearing him in person, his lecture is full of facts and honesty, not like others! ...Tremendous CD

I'm just through reading the first half of Vol. 1, but I am so far impressed with its thoroughness and clarity. When I looked at other biology text books for self-study, many seemed padded with extraneous material and gimmicks. Worse, these texts talked down to the reader. "Biological Sciences" is not chatty in a forced attempt to be 'relevant' but instead makes demands on the reader without being willfully obscure. Even better, the pages are not full of fashionable white space, but packed with text. The only caveat I have is that since 1996, surely many developments have cropped up since this last edition. But for basics, this is top notch.

This book is a treasure. I used it several years ago as a sophomore in high school to prepare for the AP Examination in Biology. Wonderfully illustrated, exceptionally written, and very easy to use!

I got a "5" on the exam, which is the highest score attainable... I think that speaks for itself!

In depth detail and extremely comprehensive. Also easy to navigate.

It's verry intersting all the book and I really learn a lot with yuor chaps.

Cancer Nursing is an excellent resource for any library for either the practicing oncology nurse or the healthcare professional caring for oncology patients. This book is written with in depth information to help you care for oncology patients. This book has an easy to follow and understand lay out including the most up to date cancer information.

This book is the bible to oncology nurses. It starts at the beginning of time to give you background on cancer, but it also goes in depth to describe each specific disease and as the disease progresses what signs and symptoms to be on the watch for. I found this book to be extremely informative for anyone who wants to know every thing there is to know about cancer. It is an easy read book that is up to date on diseases, clinical trials, drug company pt assistance, as well as listings for oncology support groups..I showed this book to an AOCN who stated this was the most informative easily digested book she has seen. The information is clearly written easily understood and easily findable...enjoy this informative book...

iMovie2 does not come with an instruction book, and the iMac booklet helps precious little, so I was pleased to find Brad Miser's Idiot Guide (which is a series I like anyway). The book is both imformative and insightful, plus a lot of fun to read. It got me going with iMovie in very short order, and when I emailed Mr. Miser to clarify a point, I got a prompt and effective answer. Highly recommended.

There are few things as satisfying and fun to the videographer as making professional movies - videos that you actually want to watch a second time or more - and Apple's iMovie software is THE tool to do just that. You get superb results from an inexpensive piece of software - IF you can use it. While the program is exceptionally simple, there is only an on screen "Help Menu," and we all know how those work: everything but the question you need answered, it seems. Into the void has rushed Brad Miser with wit and wisdom, and with all the answers and instruction you need and then some. His Idiot's Guide is a marvelous introduction to video/movie making, and he walks you through composition, editing, mixing, enhancing, titling, effects, and stuff you never thought possible when you bought that video camera (or even thought about buying it). Miser is one of those very few authors that are effectively "high tech" and "high touch," he writes with clarity, and with an obvious love of his subject. If Amazon would allow it, I'd give this six stars.

Very well written and practically laid out. Superior to Novak's, Kistner, or Danforth.

I found Comprehensive Gynecology to be the best text I have read in this field. It is clear and consise yet comprehensively summarizes the current literature on each topic. Each chapter begins with a glossary of terms and ends with an excellent point by point review of key concepts. The text covers basic sciences, comprehensive evaluation of the female, general gynecology, gynecologic oncology, reproductive endocrinology and infertility. The chapters are well organized and include a synopsis of the current literature. I would recommend this text to anyone studing for fellowship exams. I have also read Copeland's Gynecology and in comparison found Comprehensive Gynecology to be superior in organization and readability.

Excellant book for beginners. Takes you through the process step by step with exercises. A bonus: the book is illustrated with nice photos of some general interest.

While most of the near-150 pages are filled with screenshots accompanied by concise explanations set in bigger-than-usual type, Castro's coverage of iPhoto still comprises far more detail and facts than I had expected given the common "introductory"-type positioning of this title.
Apparently, Castro does a lot of topic research and testing before she writes about something. And on top of that, she manages to express her knowledge and experience crystal clear with a minimum of wording -- kudos!

While the title focusses on only two of maybe half a dozen of iPhoto's core functions, Castro certainly covers 80 percent if not more of what a user of this software can know about it. And she does so mostly just as comprehensive as other and more voluminous books on iPhoto, and in some areas she even goes way beyond and deeper. Only the advanced image editing with exposure, saturation etc settings comes off a bit short, but this isn't part of the advertised topics. Consquently, I am deciding to award all 5 Stars.