Designing Web Graphics.3 (3rd Edition) (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This update to Lynda Weinman's highly successful Designing Web Graphics series addresses the new technologies related to Web site design, such as dynamic HTML (DHTML), the Portable Network Graphics (PNG) format, and standardized red-green-blue (sRGB). It also discusses the new software programs that help you create and optimize Web graphics, such as Adobe ImageReady and Macromedia Fireworks. Weinman also deals with the old favorites, such as Photoshop and Paintshop Pro, and continues to focus on creating good-looking, compact graphics, as opposed to writing HTML, say, or setting up a server.

Weinman helps you develop your career in the area of Web graphics by setting goals, building a portfolio, and making your work and talent known. She helps you optimize graphics and work with the best file formats and color palettes for your purpose. You'll learn color-related concepts such as spectrum, hue, and saturation; choose effective color schemes; create links, buttons, image maps, tables, frames, animated GIFs, and JavaScript rollovers; work with type and DHTML; fine-tune HTML to alter text, tables, links, and more; and work with plug-ins and QuickTime 3.0.

The book has many large, useful illustrations and screen shots, and the text is simple, straightforward, and geared successfully for relative newcomers. --Kathleen Caster

Product Description

Designing Web Graphics.3 is being completely revised and updated to cover the latest web technologies. The book will feature all new images and text, a new interior design, and a new cover. Written in Lynda's trademark style, Designing Web Graphics.3 will provide extensive step-by-step coverage of how today's best and most-used web tools, including Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Paint Shop Pro, Photo-Paint and more are used to create web images and media. Designing Web Graphics.3 will also include real-world examples, case studies, and galleries of the webs best content. The book will cover the following new topics: HTML editors; Web strategies; Cross-platform and cross-browser fonts; Tools for optimization; Understanding links; Color theory; Plug-ins; Using frames for alignment; Using tables for margins; Using tables for animation; Cascading style sheets; Fixing bad scans; DHTML; QuickTime 3.0; WebTV; Flash, RealAudio; RealVideo; Dreamweaver; Fireworks; and ImageReady.

Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: New Riders Press; 3 edition (March 17, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1562059491
• ISBN-13: 978-1562059491
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,234,411 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

60 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The audience is the thing, January 8, 2000

By	tropic_of_criticism - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This book is intended for a certain audience, and for that audience this book largely succeeds. If you have little knowledge of web design and basic graphical concepts, there are few books on the market which equal Weinman for her general advice. More advanced web authorers may well be able to pick apart the code she gives here as faulty in some regards, but for a general overview of basic concepts, she's hard to beat. I found her discussion of color use and image resolution to be particularly helpful at the time I read it, even though now I might regard that information as terribly basic. Weinman has a unique gift, I think, for teaching, and I found her writing style engaging, even if there were, as has been stated elsewhere, a few contentual errors.

Of course, we're at a different point in web development than we were when this book was written almost a year ago. Now, many company websites give you much of this information as a part of their websites. Macromedia in particular has much of the advice of this book for free on its website--if you look for it.

Who, then, should buy this book? I think if you have a less-than-stellar web connection, or have problems spending hours reading text from websites, or simply do better learning from a real book, this is a great starting point.

Also, if you see teachers as fallible individuals whose value is principally in their ability to inspire less than in the absolute precision of their facts, this is your book as well.

And if you want a great collection of well-organized references from which to continue your learning, this, too, is where you want to start. Weinman has saved her readers--especially those with slow ISPs--the bother of scouring the net for valuable design resources. There are hundreds of top-notch graphic design web sites listed here by content, which can well save you HOURS of searching if you have a slow web connection, or if your searching skills aren't what they might be.

To be sure, there's valid criticism to make of this book. However, <designing web graphics.3> has so much potential applicability that a simple panning of it is entirely undeserved. If you know your way around any Macromedia(-like) product, you probably would think of this as a 1-star kind of book. But if, like its intended audience, you don't know a JPG from a hole in the wall, this is a 5-star effort.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The title is misleading..., April 17, 2000

By	Sarah (Coaldale, PA) - See all my reviews

this is more of a web design-in-general book, not just web graphics...nonetheless the information is helpful, especially for beginners. I also find myself referencing it quite often on the job, even though I read it cover-to-cover.

I agree with other reviewers on the HTML code in this book, it leaves much to be desired. However, I find the Hexadecimal Conversion Chart and Browser Safe Color Chart to be handy when I need them, and don't feel like resourcing the web.

All in all, it is a good desktop reference that I am sure I will use again and again.

22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Authoritative All-In-One By A Teaching Design Pro, January 25, 2000

By	David Gurgel (Roseland, New Jersey United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Are you a web developer who lacks graphics design skills? Have you created your first several sites and wanted to go beyond the design elements in the FrontPage templates? Then this is the book for you since the author assumes that you have hacked a few web sites and have a strong interest, but little formal training, in design.

Or perhaps you are leading a project team and come from a programming backgound. You are comfortable with ASP, Java, Perl, and SQL, but graphics design is a bit of a mystery. This is your book too, since it is a serious book by a design professional and has sufficient depth to make you comfortable in any project meeting.

Lynda Weinman is not only a skilled designer but an experienced teacher. This beautifully illustrated 430-page book covers all of the graphics basics.

This book may be the only one you need.