Category: Reviews
Reviewing Digital Photography Hacks
Digital Photography Hacks is a part of O’reilly’s hacks series, which provide tricks and solutions for different fields. This book gives you tips and tricks when dealing with your digital camera.
I read this book after reading Digital Photography Guide for the same writer, Direck. So, I found myself comparing between the two books and found the Digital Photography Hacks is an extension for the Digital Photography Guide. These tips and tricks complete your knowledge with some useful methods to create professional photos using tools and things around you.
If you know your camera well, you will find this book very useful and open your mind for new tricks to produce professional photos. However, if you were a beginner in digital photography I would prefer to start with Direck’s Digital Photography Guide.
Reviewed by: Rafiq R. Elmansy
Product Details:
Digital Photography Hacks
Publisher: O’reilly
Reviewing Developing Digital Short Films
Sherri Sheridan takes you in her book Developing Digital Short Films through a very spectacular trip in the most interesting design topics which is about films and animation production industry.
While moving through this interesting educational trip, you will find Sherri stands out with her tips, proverbs of famous people and exercises, which is the only way to fully digest the content of the book.
Reviewing Color Management
Macromedia Flash professional 8 training from the Source is a member of the training from the source series that lets you learn by example. The book is good for beginners that need to know about Flash. In the beginning, Tom Green and Jordan L. Chilcott introduce Flash interface and walk through the program features with some useful example for better understanding for the program and its features.
For sure, it is not useful if you want to go deeper and more advanced in the program, but it is still a very good start. This book is also a very useful resource for the Flash certification exam beside the study guide.
Reviewed by: Rafiq R. Elmansy
Product Details:
Macromedia Flash 8 Training from the Source
Publisher: Macromedia Press
ISBN: 0321336291
Reviewing Building Websites with Joomla
Joomla is an open-source CMS that enable you to build PHP websites. Hagen Graf’s book, Building Websites with Joomla, provides you a complete reference for Joomla CMS features and how to use these features in building dynamic websites and e-commerce web applications.
The book starts with defining the terms and concepts of Joomla to easily understand the tutorial in the book. However, the next chapters start to introduce you to Joomla beginning with the installation in chapter 2 and introducing the Joomla interface features.
The following 4th and 5th chapters show you how to customize Joomla site, menus and managing content.
Chapter 6 includes tutorial about how to install component and modules such as Banners, Contacts, Feeds, Polls and Weblinks.
While the 7th chapter concerns with Forums, Comments and Calendars, the 8th chapter talks about Image Gallery and how to Manage Documents in your site. And chapter 9 concerns with E-commerce.
After describing the content of Joomla, chapter 10 and 11 help you to create your own templates and program extensions.
The writer finishes the book with an online reference of the Mambo and Joomla resources.
Product Details:Writer: Hagen Graf
Book Name: Building Websites with Joomla
Publisher: Packt publishing
ISBN: 1904811949
URL: http://www.packtpub.com/joomla/book
Reviewed by: Rafiq Elmansy
Reviewing Animation and Effects with Macromedia Flash MX 2004
In her book, Animation and Effects with Macromedia Flash MX 2004, Jen DeHaan covered the animation effects techniques in Flash MX 2004.
Jen started her book with a fast introduction to Flash MX 2004, and then she moved on to the animation techniques in Flash, motion tweening, shape tweening and frame by frame animation.
Also, she did not miss to mention the animation using action script. And in the end of the book, she included useful appendixes about publishing SWF, time line effects and keyboard shortcuts.
However, this book is a good reference for intermediate designers and developers that want to get a solid background on the animation in Flash MX 2004.
Reviewed by: Rafiq R. Elmansy
Product Details:
Book title: Animation and Effects with Macromedia Flash MX 2004
Author: Jen DeHaan
Publisher: Macromedia Press
ISBN: 032130344X
Reviewing Adobe Photoshop CS2 Class Room in a Book
Are you a digital photographer, graphic designer or a professional graphic design that eager to be an Adobe Certified Expert? So, you have to read this book. Adobe Photoshop CS2 Class Room in a Book is the official training book for Adobe Systems and the official training source for the Adobe Certified Expert exam.
This book provides a how-to training guide for Adobe Photoshop CS2, and covers all the features in this magnificent program starting with the working area and program anatomy, going through the photo editing features and other program features.
Also, it covers the new features in Adobe Photoshop CS2 like smart object, vanishing point and camera RAW technique that provides enhanced capabilities for image editing for digital photographers.
Adobe Photoshop Class Room in a Book is the best practice book for all who work with Adobe Photoshop CS2, whether digital photographers or graphic designs.
Product Details:
Adobe Photoshop CS2 Class Room in a Book
Publisher: Adobe Press
ISBN: 0321321847
Reviewing Adobe Creative Suite 2 Class Room in a Book
Adobe Creative Suite 2 Class Room in a Book is part of the official training series for Adobe products. This book provides various training projects that cover different fields of the graphic design.
These fields are covered using the application included in the Adobe Creative Suite as following:
* Image editing with Adobe Photoshop CS2.
* Drawing and illustrating with Adobe Illustrator CS2.
* Page layout with Adobe InDesign CS2.
* Web design with GoLive CS2.
* Client reviews and printout with Adobe Acrobat 0.7 Professional and Adobe Reader
* File Sharing with Adobe Version Cue CS2.
* Organizing assets with Adobe Bridge.
If you got a project that needs different graphic contents such as web pages and printouts, this book will provide you a complete solution of how to implement the Adobe CS2 applications to manage and work in your project.
These series is also the official training for the Adobe Certified Expert exam.
Although this book is not a helping guide for Adobe applications, but it provides a how-to steps that complete your knowledge of the Adobe Creative Suite application with practice and training.
Product Details:
Adobe Creative Suite 2 Class Room in a Book
Publisher: Adobe Press
ISBN: 0321349822
