Book Review - slide:ology The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations By Nancy Duarte

slide:ology The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations By Nancy Duarte

This is the book that should come with Keynote, Powerpoint and should be read by anyone preparing for a visual presentation. It's not a software manual but you could consider it to be a top notch visual presentation manual.

Invaluable tips that will make you appear like a true pro if you follow thru on them.

Book Review - Adobe After Effects CS4 Classroom in a Book by the Adobe Creative Team.

Adobe After Effects CS4 Classroom in a Book by the Adobe Creative Team.

The CIB series has always been a good investment of time and money. This edition is no different. If you're looking to learn After Effects, this is where you need to get started.

There are 14 lessons covering all aspects of After Effects starting with workflow and including masking, keying, 3D features and other basics. I really like that they introduced the tracking features. This is not a tool for beginners but the Adobe Creative Team has made it simple.

One caveat. This book will not make you a professional After Effects user. The only thing that will do that is practice, lots of it, But this book is what you need to get started.

Book Review - Real World Adobe InDesign CS4 by Olav Martin Kvern & David Blatner.

Real World Adobe InDesign CS4 by Olav Martin Kvern & David Blatner.

This is the reference book to get if you're looking for just ONE book on InDesign. Actually, even if you buy more than one InDesign book, this should still be one of them. The CS3 version was a veritable cornucopia of InDesign factoids. This one is no different. This version is over 800 pages. It really is the go to book for how to do things in InDesign. You could try the Adobe InDesign User Guide, but why bother, this is the book that should've been packaged with the disks.

I had the good fortune of meeting Oli Kvern and David Blatner at a conference recently. So reading the book and hearing their voices in my head as I read the book made the book even more interesting. They are both very interesting and very smart and savvy InDesign professionals. This book reflects that savvy knowledge base and it's easy to read and locate the info you need.

Book Review - Photoshop Lightroom 2 Adventure: Mastering Adobe's Next-Generation Tool for Digital Photographers by Mikkel Aaland

Photoshop Lightroom 2 Adventure: Mastering Adobe's Next-Generation Tool for Digital Photographers by Mikkel Aaland.

This is a different style of book from what you normally find in project based books. While it has it's fair share of screen shots as you would expect, it's also beautifully illustrated with some amazing photography from a wide array of professional photographers.

The landscape of the photos is from a Tasmanian photo trek. Mikkel Aaland takes you on a fabulous journey through Lightroom as you experience not only his photographic skill but also his Lightroom workflow. This is one of the better Lightroom books available.

The beginning of the book introduces you to the 18 photographers and 5 Adobe Lightroom Developers that Mikkel on this trip. Everyday for 10 days they would shoot, then every night for those 10 days they would spend their evenings processing the days worth of shots thru Lightroom 2. The end result is this fabulous book.

Book Review - Photoshop CS4 Channels & Masks One-On-One by Deke McClelland

Photoshop CS4 Channels & Masks One-On-One by Deke McClelland.

I'm a big fan of the one-on-one series. If you need to learn about channels & masks, this is the book to get. The tutorials on masking hair and alpha channels are 2nd to none. The fact that this book also comes with 3hrs video training makes this book the obvious choice for learning about this subject. There's also no other book out there on this subject, and luckily it's Deke who's written it.

Book Review - Photoshop CS4 - The Missing Manual by Lisa Snider King

Photoshop CS4 - The Missing Manual by Lisa Snider King.

The Missing Manual series is always a good investment in your time and money. This specific title covers every aspect of Photoshop and gives beginners a good intro and even provides great productivity tips for experienced users who are wanting to get up to speed with Photoshop CS4.

I read another review on the NAPP site that said this book reminded them of the original Photoshop Bible series by Deke McClelland. I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. The nice thing about Lesa's book is that she doesn't drive us nuts with a crazy sense of humor like Deke did. Yeah Lesa. I should say I really like Deke too. Lesa's Photoshop CS4 Missing Manual is a great replacement book to the bible series.

Book Review - Real World Compositing with Adobe Photoshop CS4 by Dan Moughamian & Scott Valentine

Real World Compositing with Adobe Photoshop CS4 by Dan Moughamian & Scott Valentine.

This book is an affordably priced solution for those amateur retouchers/digital photographers looking to transition to the pro level. This is not a book for learning how to use Photoshop. It's a book for those intermediate level users who need help to develop planning and workflow skills.

The beginning of the book talks about pre-viz and planning. The authors clearly have a great deal of experience and share some great insights for you to be taking into account when planning your composites.

While I found the chapter on lighting to be rather light, the authors made some good recommendations for some other reading sources for further study. One of the best chapters is about the new 3D modeling and rendering features now available in CS4 Extended. The authors gave a good introduction to this new feature as well as a good intro to Cinema 4D as a complementary app.