Customer Reviews

Adobe Fireworks CS4 Classroom in a Book

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The Adobe Classroom in a Book series is, as one would expect, a dependable source of basic instruction on the fundamentals of a given software title. The Fireworks title is no different: eleven lessons that move from the most basic functions, to progressively more complex. Fireworks is, in my view, an undeservedly poor cousin of powerhouses Photoshop and Illustrator. The program is incredibly useful for preparing client comps and on-screen images. As a new Fireworks user, I have become a real fan of the program, and the CIB book was a very good introduction. The included CD features all the working files needed to complete the lessons, as well as two bonus chapters/lessons. If you learn best in a tutorial environment, where practice is emphasized rather than theory, you can't go wrong with this one.

No book can make one creative and certainly this book does not intend to do so. It is a quick guide to the "how to?" of the basics of Fireworks. It is a step by step guide of the most important
tasks that needs doing using bitmap art. There are not many books written on Fireworks CS4, which makes this book a "no alternative, but to have". Using the know-how it gives, and combining
it with your own creativeness, you will get far, Especially if one is designing artwork for the Web, this book is will assist you in understanding how to optimize your files.

I recommend this book for absolute beginners in the use of the software. You follow the lessons and you'll be able to drive around Fireworks CS4 quite comfortably. Good luck!

I have enjoyed the Adobe Classroom in a Book/Macromedia Training From The Source and Lynda Weinman Hands-On Training books for years now. With the Lynda series migrating to by-subscription Online Training, the Classroom in a Book series is THE place for those who want to learn programs in Creative Suite CS4 and enjoy reading books as opposed to online tutorials. This particular entry in that series is really great. Is is not overly verbose, yet introduces so many Fireworks concepts and techniques that it covers more than way fatter books. The pages are in color, which is nice, and the lesson files work well. I agree with the other reviewer that has issues with the PDFs, but they are just bonus lessons. I highly recommend this title.

The Adobe Fireworks CS4 Classroom in a book did NOT cover all the options in the software.
I specifically got the book for help in creating slideshows, but there is nothing in the book about it.
I generall like the Classroon in a book series, but was disappointed that this one was incomplete.
I will be very cautious in purchasing any additional version.

I've been through most of this series of CS4 books. The others were great. This one was easily inferior. The instructions left out steps in several lessons. If I wanted to figure out Fireworks CS4 on my own, I wouldn't have bought the book!

If you are looking for a step by step, detail oriented book to learn Fireworks CS4 then this would be it. Jim Babbage did an excellent job at detailing each step you take to edit an image , tweaking vectors, or how to preview and import/export your PNGs for use in other programs like Dreamweaver or Flash. Easily learn how to quickly prototype a user interface using the Pages, Layers and States panel. There are many things in this book that you just cant find online anywhere!

Best of all the images within the book are in color so its easy to quickly understand what he's demonstrating!

Un-fortunately, I'm giving my review 4 stars because the CD user experience completely sucks. Placing a PDF file in different folders that launch external links which open a browser window is ridiculous. I can't stand PDFs so I'm a little biased about them, bust seriously why not just HTML and Images or make a UI that makes sense? Aside from the frustrating experience with the DVD-ROM I was able to access all the lession files used in the tutorials which was the primary purpose of accessing the DVD-ROM anyways. Ignore everything else and just open the Lesson Files folder to get what you need to get going.

I've had Adobe CS4 for years and have not used Fireworks before - didn't know what it was. I have no formal trainaing with Adobe producst and use Acrobat Pro, Photoshop and Illustrator extensively. I found the manual to be easy to follow and gives me the basic knowledge to utilize Fireworks to create a web page. I even learned some new tricks to use in Photoshop!

This is a basic level tutorial as the other reviewers pointed out, but I found it to be quite usefull.

Without going over to my bookshelf and counting this is probably my 6th or 7th Adobe Classroom in a Book. If you have ever owned a CIB before then this is no different. The writers start out small with chapters that take about an hour to complete. There are 11 chapters in the book and two more on the included CD-ROM.

Fireworks is a great program and learning it with this book is a great place to start. Don't be fooled. Some people treat this book like it will make you a pro. It will not. But neither will any of the Classroom in a Book series. Rather, this book with give you a practical understanding of Fireworks that will allow you to navigate the program and understand the terminology associated with its use. You will be able to do projects with Fireworks when you are done, but you will still have quite a bit of room to learn (either via Adobe's website or by purchasing a more advanced book).

Either way this is a great start and I still reference it when I need to do a quick mock-up or a prototype for a presentation.

All the Adobe books are well written and easy to understand and this book is no exception!

I got this book out of the library to see if I might need it. I've used fireworks a few versions ago and wanted to see what has changed. While the book was okay at going over fireworks I found two context and spelling errors just flipping through it. It incorrectly labeled CMYK colors twice swapping it to read CYMK. That isa basic color format that anyone in graphic design would know. It jumped out at me, and that was only a few pages into the book. I flipped through the rest and found some more errors. I decided the book wasn't for me based on these errors, as they made me doubt the rest of the info.