Customer Reviews

Premiere 6 for Macintosh and Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Premiere 6 for Macintosh and Windows Visual Quickstart Guide by Antony Bolante, et al can help readers at any level learn this very capable but sometimes complicated software. Chapters and examples are organized in the same order that most users will access various Premier 6 features, Macintosh and Windows version differences are painlessly explained, and step by step task instruction is provided in each chapter. This logical "here's how you do it" approach, plus the wealth of illustrations and non-technical explanations should be especially welcome to readers without experience. It is refreshing to read a computer book that visually educates and contains plain language instead of chapter after chapter of technical jargon. But, this is far more than just a book for beginners, as the experienced user will also find many tips and strategies for effectively using Premiere 6, too. Explanations of the many audio and video import and export settings, information missing in most Premiere documentation, were invaluable in helping me produce an acceptable end result. The comparisons between Premiere 6 and traditional film editing were also very interesting, and although this information isn't necessary to use Premiere 6, it helped me understand how motion picture editing is done. And the price is right too, especially for a 400+ page book loaded with examples. This book helped me make the fast progress that I needed to make, and did it with style. Bravo!

A comprehensive and well organized manual for Adobe Premiere 6. Includes a great Index and detailed Table of Contents, making it easy to find answers to almost any questions very quickly. Text is generally to the point and clear, with many illustrations. In addition to thoroughly covering Premiere, there are general sections related to video, such as Frame Rate, Time Code, Interlacing, Aspect Ratios, etc..

It should be noted that this book is NOT a step-by-step tutorial to teach you Premiere. It works as a reference manual, and does that job admirably. Although one could probably learn Premiere with this book, for beginners I would recommend Adobe's Classroom in a Book series and/or the tutorials that ship with Premiere.

Overall, an outstanding book and an excellent value. ...END

I read all the reviews here on Amazon-- and I know that they were very extreme- I teach webdesign programs... Flash, Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver etc. I find that Visual QuickStart books (and this one is no exception) are the best in the market... try reading Adobe Premierer's class room in a book- and then get back to me- Talk about filler words and useless reading!

Maybe someone will write a Premiere 1-2-3 book... till then, this is the best book you can get!

Xandro

I'm a tough critic of technical books; its a significant investment of both my time and money, so I demand a lot. Quickstart disappoints on a number of levels. It's essentially a dry and mechanical compilation of Premiere's settings and options (albeit a very complete one), with very little insight as to how to use these features. For example, a new feature in Premiere 6 is "bins" or folders that organize a project. The author tells us click by click how to create, modify, and delete bins (just like the manual), but offers no "quickstart" tips on how to best use this feature, or examples of benefits a user can derive from them. Another similar feature is the new "storyboard" capability in Premiere. Bolante tells us what to click to create a storyboard, but offers no advice as to when to use it. What are the benefits of using a storyboard vs. editing clips directly to the timeline? What is gained and what is lost? I know that I can create a timeline from a storyboard (the manual and Quickstart both tell us what to click), but can I create a storyboard from an existing timeline? The manual doesn't say; this book doesn't either. There are ommissions where we need details most: in selecting the options that will appear on the "list" view in the project window, there are three user definable fields. I could never figure out how to use these fields, and the author explained every option except these user defined fields. Maybe he couldn't find it in the manual either. The name "Quickstart" implies that this book is geared toward helping a novice understand how to best use the program to achieve desired results. This book is more accurately titled "Reference Guide", and not a particularly insightful one at that. Stick to the on-line program docs.

I found the book hard to read and to follow, unless you already know how to use the program. It states the information in a way that reviews the procedures in a dry format, which is fine if you using the book with a Premiere course.

The book needs to do a better job at grounding the reader about the world of DV. It doesn't so I was confused as I was trying to understand the content. Big ideas need to be discussed, then discuss the details.

I decided to buy some video tapes on the topic, which were amazing. Maybe a program such as Premiere is difficult to learn from a book. I have read many computer books, which have helped me with other non-video editing programs. I guess this program is just hard to teach through a book.

I was recently comparing 3 Premiere 6 books in the store.
This book was much clearer and easier to understand than
the other two. Not only that, it was half the price of the
other two! When do you pay half the price for something
that is better than other products. The best part is I
am already putting videos together at home thanks to this
book. Buy it!

The organizational structure is not as logical as it could be, for example, capturing video is at the end of the book. Not great for a "hands on" manual. It did not seem to offer any great advantage over the Adobe manual. Repeats really simple concepts (how many times does anyone who has used Windows or Mac need "drag and drop" explained in elaborate detail, whether related to moving or copying video clips, audio clips, or files) at the expense of other essential concepts.

After struggling with the program and the manual, I bought this and another book. This one is great! The instructions were clear with screen shots to follow the sequence being discussed. It gives a nice simple explaination of the logic to why or how the program does something. Locating a section to reference is easy as thumbing through the pages.

This book has already answered alot of my questions, and will be sitting on the corner of my desk as when I am working on a video project. The other book will probably be returned.

Having a considerable amount of experience with other non-linear editing programs but no real experience with Premiere, I picked up this book to try out the program. Within an hour I had my DV cam hooked up and controlled by the computer; within four hours, I had completed my project and dumped it all back to DV tape, a half-hour long program edited to the minute. Without this book I would've been stuck. The only improvements I would suggest would be more in-depth demonstrations, but for first-timers, it's a must-have.

As a relative editing newbie (I've hung out in film schools but never taken a digital editing class) I found this guide INCREDIBLY helpful. The instructions were simple without being basic, and the various chapters were set up like easy-to-follow lessons. Thanks to Bolante's experience and clarity, I'm already well on my way to mastering one of the best filmmaking tools I've ever seen. If you want to join the digital moviemaking revolution, this is a must-read.