After Effects Expressions or Hands on Digital Photography

After Effects Expressions

Author: Marcus Geduld

Put the power of Expressions to work in your animations with controls and efficiencies impossible to achieve with traditional keyframing techniques.
No programming skills are required. Foundation concepts and skills orient the new designer and serve as a handy reference to the experienced one. Basics of creating Expressions, variables, commands, and Expression helpers precede the leap into JavaScript and math essentials for more advanced Expressions that include randomness and physical simulations.
Full color illustrations display the scripts and the resulting effects, Pick Whip techniques, and sequential animations. Downloadable companion files include QuickTime movies of the demo animations, and AE project files that permit you to examine the Expressions.

* No programming experience required.
* Full-color presentation of Pick Whip techniques and sequential animations.
* Downloadable project files and QuickTime videos.

Book review: Six Great Ideas or Arts Inc

Hands-on Digital Photography: A Step-by-Step Course in Camera Controls, Software Techniques, and Successful Imaging

Author: George Schaub

George Schaub has taught digital photography to hundreds of people in workshops and courses across the country. All of his students have had one thing in common: They wanted to get the best images from their digital cameras. Now, in Hands-On Digital Photography, Schaub presents everything he teaches and everything he has learned in his fifteen years of teaching. Image processing software is great...but Schaub's practical, project-based approach focuses on the camera and getting the best shot possible every time, so beginning to intermediate photographers can spend more time capturing the shot and less time manipulating it. In easy-to-follow projects, the author discusses how digital photography allows greater creativity; file formats and how they affect post-exposure processing; how to choose resolution and compression ratios; exposures for the best digital images; camera menus; RAW file format; in-camera exposure adjustments; in-camera contrast adjustments; and much more. Now it's easy for photographers to get the most from their digital cameras and to make every shot a great shot!

Daniel Lombardo - Library Journal

Editorial director of Shutterbugand eDigitalPhotomagazines, Schaub focuses on knowing the camera so well that one gets the best possible photo every time. Though aimed at the beginning to intermediate student, this book is most useful for advanced photographers. The projects and exercises are not subject based but function based, with the text divided into sections titled "Understanding the Digital Image," "In-Camera Controls," and "Software Controls." Beginning photographers will be better served by Tom Ang's How To Photograph Absolutely Everything(reviewed on p. 90).

Table of Contents:

Introduction     8
Understanding the Digital Image
Pixels: Picture Elements     12
File Formats     14
Resolution, Resizing, and Resampling     20
RGB Channels     26
Color     29
Color Options     32
Contrast     40
Getting into Raw     42
In-Camera Controls
A Quick Camera Tour     54
ISO: Light Sensitivity     62
Noise Reduction     66
White Balance     70
Aperture and Depth of Field     76
Shutter Speed     80
Metering     84
Exposure Compensation     90
Bracketing     94
Fill Flash     96
Color Saturation     100
Contrast     102
Sharpening     104
Combining Settings     106
Color Matching vs. Color Mood     108
Color Bias     112
Black-and-White Mode     114
Panorama Mode     118
Digital Filter Effects     124
Special Effects     126
Playback Diagnostics     130
Software Controls
Memory Cards and Image Downloading     138
Exposure     144
Cropping     152
Adding Color     156
Contrast     158
Saturation     162
Transforming     166
Interpretations     168
Unlocking the Beauty     172
Index     176