Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional Classroom in a Book (Paperback)

by Adobe Creative Team (Author)
Key Phrases: color difference key, shape layer, advanced editing techniques, After Effects, Source Name, Layer Name (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Visual effects and motion graphics pros of all stripes--from broadcast professionals to VFX supervisors to Web designers who need to produce occasional video segments--will welcome the dramatically accelerated features provided in the brand-new After Effects CS3 This best-selling book has been revised to cover all that's new in this upgrade: Shape layers, which enables users to easily create and animate shapes; Puppet tool, which you can use to animate a 2D image like a marionette; powerful integration with Photoshop CS3; new support for Flash designers; the new Brainstorm panel, which lets you preview an array of different visual possibilities in one gorgeous panel; complete color management workflow; Adobe Clip Notes, which lets you attach comments directly to a composition; Adobe Device Central CS3, which lets you preview and test animations for mobile devices, and more. Designed around a single complex project that's broken down into manageable lessons, this book-and-DVD package mimics a real-world workflow--but one that readers tackle at their own pace. The DVD contains all the lesson files and footage readers need to complete the lessons.


Educational instructor notes—created to help teachers plan, organize, and time their lessons—are available for this book (and for other Classroom in a Book titles) at www.peachpit.com/instructorresources.

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About the Author
The Adobe Creative Team of designers, writers, and editors has extensive, real-world knowledge of Adobe products. They work closely with the Adobe product development teams and Adobe's Instructional Communications team to come up with creative, challenging, and visually appealing projects to help both new and experienced users get up to speed quickly on Adobe software products

Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Adobe Press; 1 Pap/Dvdr edition (August 3, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321499794
• ISBN-13: 978-0321499790
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #72,965 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not Bad, October 15, 2007

By	P. Studdard (Louisiana) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have only begun working on the 1st 2 lessons. I have done the 1st one several times. It isn't that the book doens't have good information its just that it is often difficult to follow exactly what the writers are telling you to do. The lessons themselves are pretty basic and helpful. I just wish they could be a bit more specific so that I am not having to figure out what layers or project selection I am supposed to make. I have had the same problem with both lesson 1 and 2. I think a DVD lesson would have been better so that there would have been nothing left out of the details. Once you figure out what the writer wants you to select, the book isn't bad.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Neither comprehensive nor for beginners, May 25, 2008

By	Jerry Saperstein (Evanston, IL USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)

I am totally unfamiliar with Adobe After Effects and based upon the title and experience with other Adobe Classroom in a Book titles, thought this would bring me gently into the After Effects universe.

Wrong. Totally wrong.

Rather than provide an overview of what After Effects does or is capable of, the book states "Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional provides a comprehensive set of 2D and 3D tools for compositing, animation and effects that motion-graphics professionals, visual effects artists, web designers and film and video professionals need. After Effects is widely used for digital post-production of film, video, DVD, and the web. You can compositer layers in various ways, apply and combine sophisticated visual and audio effects, and animate both objects and effects." That's it. That's the whole introduction to After Effects. Hardly illuminating and certainly not helpful to the neophyte.

The authors promises to teach the newcomer fundamental concepts and features - and it dispenses with that mission in a few inadequate pages.

Then it is on to learning the new features of After Effects CS3, which is what this book is all about.

But even that is not done well. Take for example these informative sentences: "You can pucker a shape by pulling the path's vertices inward while curving segments outward." There are no explanatory illustrations.

The lessons are nothing more than instruction lists with little explanation of what you are doing or why. The back cover declares "The fastest, easiest, most comprehensive way to learn Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional". I don't think so. Not by a long shot.

Overall, a disappointment and not the way for a beginner to learn about the capabilities of After Effects.

Jerry

4.0 out of 5 stars Pulls you through accurately, May 31, 2009

By	J. Hemphill "Edits Jets" (Louisiana) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

While I was pretty familiar with NLE editing, the tools and effects of After Effects stumped me. Classroom in a Book lead me in and is opening up lots of doors. Well written and realistic projects. Good pace. I'm getting a lot out of it, at my own pace. And very importantly for a newbie, if it say's a screen looks like this, it does look like that and works just as described. This level of correlation between the text and real world is very important when you're trying to do something complex. Builds confidence.