After Effects 5.5 Magic [With CDROM]

After Effects 6.5 Magic is an excellent resource for those who understand the program basics and are now looking to expand their skills and challenge their abilities. This book was designed for the intermediate user -- After Effects beginners like the reviewer from Texas will become lost and confused. I recommend the Meyers' books too, I use them for reference all the time. Think of those books as the textbooks you studied when you were in school, and After Effects 6.5 Magic as the workbook you practiced with at home.

I picked this book up from my roommate who told me it would greatly help me with learning all the must know hows in Adobe After Effects. Before I knew it I was half way done with the book. The lessons were a few pages and easy to fallow along, the color pages were a nice look because hey your working with color. Who wouldn't want another source of something to improve your skills in what you love doing! I recently picked up my own copy so I can go back to it later on for a reference. Great buy...

This is an excellent book for people that are serious about After Effects. James Rankin did an excellent job authoring the book. The color images look great and are very helpful. The book is very easy to navigate through. This book is most helpful at work. The chapter topics translate very well into the professional use of After Effects. I would recommend this book to my colleagues and anyone else interested in After Effects.

This is a great book. It's not for beginners; get the Adobe Classroom in a Book (which has some pretty advanced stuff) and/or Trish and Chris Meyer's book, if you're just starting out. This book is just what I needed at this point in time: I've wanted some instruction on how to do the more advanced text Presets in 6.0 and 6.5, and this has a lot on that. It also gives you advanced methods of masking, stroking masks, using Illustrator Files like you see on TV cable shows, and advanced 3D methods such as Zaxwerks Invigorator, etc. After 3 1/2 yrs of being at a standstill, this book helped me jump to the level to where I can do most TV commercial and movie trailer graphics, it's weak on effects, however. .....it's mostly how-to, and has almost all of the keystroke commands included. But they don't give ALL the keystrokes, there are times when you have to KNOW already how to do advanced things....but if you're ready for the big time, this book is a big help ...study it carefully. The authors of this book are creative and brilliant, and present you with lots of awesome tricks that you will not get in other books, and not esoteric ones, like some books have. If you're into AE and have watched TV commercials and movie trailers and wondered "I'd like to know how to do that" this book goes a LONG way to teaching you, very quickly, how to do the really good stuff. The only limitation is, it's mostly oriented toward "desk" work: working with solids, text,, Illustrator files, and existing video footage. But for these it's great, you can start with a blank composition, and using this book, come up with some high end stuff...not the highest end, but mainstream. Most of the time your potential clients have their own video, logos, etc, and just want you to come up with ideas and put it together, and with this book you will be able to. It's not really good at advanced effects such as shatter, paint, etc. These are hardly covered at all...but then again these aren't mainstream....

This book is the best book on AE yet! While the Meyer's book is the best intermediate level book, AE Magic takes AE to the next level. A wide range of sample projects with plenty of hands-on experience across a wide range of project types. From film resolution graphics to expressions, this book takes you where you want to go. Each chapter ends with a collection of modifications and suggestions that you can use in your own productions. The multiple authors each detail their areas of expertise, and everyone will find a couple projects worthy of experimenting...Great book!