Wow! eBook – Blog

Book Description

Adobe Photoshop CS4 Studio Techniques has been completely updated to cover the new features in CS4. In a friendly, easy-going style that’s long on information and short on techno-babble, Photoshop Hall-of-Famer Ben Willmore and photographer Dan Ablan guide you through the concepts and features that will truly make a difference in how you use Photoshop every day. They’ll take you from blindly following step-by-step instructions to an in-depth understanding of how Photoshop works, cutting through the fat to focus on what they consider to be Photoshop’s essential features. This full-color book delivers the content in three easily digestible sections: Working Foundations, Production Essentials, and Creative Explorations. Streamlined for this new edition, the book will distill Photoshop’s vast capabilities down to what you need to know for a full understanding of the program, while simultaneously focusing more directly on best practices for the photographer. Beginning with a quick “refresher course” on the working foundations of Photoshop, you’ll move on to real-world production techniques. Finally, you’ll get to fully explore Photoshop’s creative potential by blending and enhancing images, creating collages, retouching photographs, colorizing, and working with filters and layer masks. By the time you finish this book, your creativity and efficiency levels will soar and you’ll feel like you finally “get” Photoshop.

About the Author
Considered to be one of the all-time great Photoshop gurus, Ben Willmore has personally taught over 50,000 Photoshop users on four continents. Famous for finding the simplicity that lies within Photoshop’s most complex features, and for his signature teaching style of “not just how but why,” Ben was inducted into the Photoshop Hall of Fame in 2004. Dan Ablan is president of AGA Digital Studios, Inc., and author of twelve books on computer graphics and publishing. Dan is an accomplished photographer and 3D animator, working the arts for the past twenty years. Download Now »

Book 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 CS4. This best-selling book has been revised to cover all that’s new in this upgrade: the ability to import 3D layers from Photoshop; the Cartoon effect that converts live-action footage into stylized imagery; Adobe Device Central CS4, 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.

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. Download Now »

Book Description

For any professional designer or developer working in the world of web technologies or multimedia, Flash is the must-have application, and knowing how to use it effectively is vital. Add in ActionScript 3.0, and Flash becomes an even more powerful tool for the development of high-performance web applications.

The Essential Guide to Flash CS4 with ActionScript introduces and explores the possibilities available to you through using Flash CS4. You will learn the aspects basics of Flash’s working environment and, using a step-by-step approach, work through the features of Flash and ActionScript needed to quickly achieve results. From navigating the interface to using graphic tools to write scripts and troubleshoot, you’ll master all of the of deploying highly interactive applications with rich audio, video, and animation.

Written for the beginning-to-intermediate Flash user, this book uses complete examples that highlight best practices that you can apply to your daily work as a developer or designer in today’s rich media world.

• Learn to create and manage assets in Flash using the graphics tools and the library.
• Acquire a comprehensive understanding of animation using the new Motion Editor and inverse kinematics tools.
• Discover the dynamic world of ActionScript development including classes, events, and XML.
• Learn to use and customize Flash’s UI components.
• Become familiar with audio and video assets including preparation and integration.
• Debug, publish, and deploy Flash applications for the Web with Flash Player and the desktop using the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR). Download Now »

Book Description

Creating Flash Widgets with Flash CS4 and ActionScript 3.0 is an introduction to developing widgets for the Internet using the new features of Flash CS4 and ActionScript 3.0. Many social-networking sites, blogs, and personal home pages have adopted the use of widgets and Flash developers can create and distribute their own widgets for others to use. A step-by-step example demonstrates how to design and develop your own Flash widgets and integrate them with XML. In addition, publishing, promoting, and capitalizing on your Flash widgets is discussed.

What you’ll learn

• Using the new tools in Flash CS4
• Basic differences of ActionScript 3.0
• Designing and developing widgets
• Utilizing XML with widgets
• Publishing widgets to the Internet
• Promoting and capitalizing on widgets Download Now »

Book Description

AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) is Adobe’s open-source technology that lets Web developers and programmers create Rich Internet Applications that run outside of any Web browser. This Visual QuickPro Guide teaches everything you need to know to begin creating applications that combine the rich experience of a traditional desktop application with the power and reach of the Internet. The book uses a visual, step-by-step approach and covers all the fundamental AIR concepts, without the fluff, confusing segues, and technical jargon that bog down so many other computer books. Author Larry Ullman has a well-earned reputation for writing books that are accessible, easy-to-follow, and, above all, useful. This book focuses solely on developing AIR applications using HTML and JavaScript, although formal knowledge of JavaScript is not required. Download Now »

Book Description

Due to its power and expandability, Drupal has become one of the most popular open source content management systems. At the same time, Flash has been adopted for its ability to create beautiful and dynamic web applications. By combining these technologies, you can create Flash applications that are both visually stunning and rich in content.

This book is an in depth discussion and tutorial on how to integrate Flash applications with Drupal CMS. It will describe the best techniques and practices for integrating Flash technology with the power and flexibility of Drupal by building real-life Flash applications.

Within this book, you will learn how to build Flash applications that show text from within Drupal and also present images, music, and video within a single Flash application. You will also be able to take advantage of the expandable fields and content filtering provided from the CCK and Views modules to add flexibility and power to your Flash applications. Finally, you will learn how to add your own custom functionality to Drupal and then utilize that from within your Flash applications leaving you with a world of possibilities.

This book starts out with a simple introduction to Flash and Drupal technology where you will create a simple Flash application and then embed that within Drupal. From there, each subsequent chapter builds on the previous chapters tackling a new and challenging task. Download Now »