Description:
The depth of Adobe's After Effects is hidden by its seductive and unintimidating interface, which is why many new users quickly find themselves lost and full of questions. Adobe Press's Adobe After Effects 5.0 Classroom in a Book levels the learning curve and presents this complex program in manageable chapters.Eleven lessons span the production of a single piece, from importing elements from other programs, to assembling these and other pieces into a final composition, through rendering for broadcast. Step-by-step guides walk you through each phase and plenty of screen shots help keep you on track. This book is ideal for someone who has installed After Effects and toyed with it, but doesn't really know where to go from there. It expects some familiarity with the computer platform you're using, as well as some familiarity with external applications that use After Effects, such as Premiere, Photoshop, and Illustrator. While an excellent book for beginners, it offers little information on using Expressions, and virtually nothing on audio filters. While After Effects is rarely used for tweaking audio, an appendix on the power of Expressions would have been welcome. Looking at the finished product might seem a bit intimidating, but the team of authors are accomplished motion graphics professionals and have put together a solid body of work. While the early chapters seem wordy and visually boring, the pieces begin to fall into place once we begin rendering movies and using these movies as elements in a greater whole. Overall, the Adobe After Effects 5.0 Classroom in a Book is a valuable course in learning to harness the power of this impressive application. --Mike Caputo
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