Adobe After Effects 7 Hands-On Training: Includes Exercise Files and Demo Movies [With CDROM]

As an educator who teaches Digital Imaging on the college level, I have become familiar with hundreds of training texts through the years. This book is excellent in that, unlike so many others, it starts at the beginning. I am not entirely sure why training books and digital courses so often pick up somewhere near the middle when we are all trying to encourage others to surrender to the digital age.

After completing 3 books on Adobe After Effects 7, I think I have a fairly good view of the types of instruction books that are available. "Classroom in a Book" by Adobe, this one by Fahs & Weinman, and "Creative After Effects 7" by Taylor. My earlier rating of "Classroom in a Book" should probably have been at least 4 stars since it's the best of the 3 (for beginners) that I've read. This one by Fahs & Weinman is straight forward and easy to follow, but isn't quite detailed enough in comparison to the "Classroom" book. The book by Taylor mentioned above is so filled with typos that it's virtually unreadable and that's why I rated it poor and is definitely the worst of these 3. After Effects is a very complicated video software effects program and has a steep learning curve on par with the still image processing program Photoshop. The more time you spend with it and the more instruction you can get, the better.

when you are done with this book, wade into the massive haphazard stew that is the Meyers books. Start with this one though, it starts at the beginning, tells you what you need to know when you need to know it, breaks it down just right. AE is a fairly vast program, and it's easy to become overwhelmed and discouraged, so getting the right book can be the difference between sticking with it or not.

This one is the best book i've had so far because it's just as the title says. hands on training books are perfect for learning