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Comment on Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques by Joel A. Glovier "JAG"

Joel A. Glovier "JAG" — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 23:37:20 +0000

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

An EXCELENT Guide, July 28, 2007

This review is from: Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques (Paperback)

"Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 How-Tos", by David Karlins, is an excellent resource for web-designers, graphic designers and anyone who may be using Adobe Dreamweaver CS4. Whether you are an expert or a novice the reader will find a concise and easy to read breakdown of creating an effective web-site with several tips on how to do it more efficiently along the way.

With the importance of web sites for business use in today's culture, everyone from the average person working for any business to more tech savvy professionals like graphic designers are finding themselves in the position of needing to have a website. For many, the option exists of assigning or hiring someone else to build such a site. But for many others, that option doesn't as easily exist. So today people are learning how to build and maintain websites like never before. Adobe's Dreamweaver CS4 is a web authoring tool designed to help web designers and developers create websites with a lot of handy features. Users can build sites in either a coding mode for those comfortable with writing straight HTML or CSS, or they can build with a Design mode for those more comfortable using a layout style interface. There is even a hybrid where you can code and view a preview at once.

But for many who are completely new to web design, using even Dreamweaver's most basic features can be something of a daunting task. In his book, David Karlins sets out to break down 100 of the most common tasks users need to know how to accomplish with Dreamweaver, and explains them in a simple fashion. The book works well as a textbook to be read alone, as a guide to walk step-by step through each topic while working in Dreamweaver or even as a quick reference for designers and developers who simply need a desktop reference.

However, this is not just a book for current Dreamweaver users. This book is also suited well for somebody who has no prior experience with building websites but may desire to learn from scratch. Karlin's writing style is very easy to read which is a treat since the nature of web design can get pretty confusing at times. This book is not heavy reading, so if you are considering getting into web design I would encourage you to pick up a copy.

[...]

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Comment on Adobe Digital Imaging How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques for Photoshop CS5, Lightroom 3, and Camera Raw 6 Reviews by Becqui

Becqui — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 23:01:58 +0000

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

Great Tips for Maximizing Workflow, November 30, 2010

Becqui -

This review is from: Adobe Digital Imaging How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques for Photoshop CS5, Lightroom 3, and Camera Raw 6 (Paperback)

I really enjoyed this book. Easy to follow with LOTS of great tips.(Still discovering them). I was amazed at how many steps I was taking in several different projects using just PS that were solved with just a few steps using Lightroom and Camera Raw. The visuals for each tip were also very helpful and made following the steps a breeze. I am still going through the book since there are so many tips. What I have discovered so far has increased my work flow and cut down on my time. I highly recommend this book if you are interested in learning some great tips and better ways of improving your work flow.

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Comment on Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques by Daniel Chang

Daniel Chang — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 22:51:10 +0000

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

Very hard to read, September 27, 2007

Daniel Chang -

This review is from: Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques (Paperback)

I highly appreciate the feedback feature in [...] and have relied on it heavily to make purchasing decision over the years. I have been reading customer reviews for many years but have never felt compelled enough to write one myself until now.

I must say that I'm highly disappointed with this book. I bought it based on the few good reviews the book garnered at the time. I find it hard to believe that I'm the only one who's had difficulty following the lessons.

The main problem is that the instructions are very text-heavy and difficult to read. Let me give you an example.

taken verbatim from the book:

"You can also draw an AP Div interactively using the Draw AP Div Tool in the Layout tab of the Insert bar."

There is no graphical illustration that goes with that. Yes, it's possible to find that tool based on the written instruction. However, it's very effortful. It took me a bit of time to find where that Draw AP Div Tool is located at. This problem is throughout the book, making it laborous to go through the lessons.

The other problem is that the book does not actually go through any examples with you. In a typical lesson, it talks about a method, its concept, and the "buttons to push", and then it moves on without actually going through an example with you.

Oh, and one more (minor) thing: the illustrations are screen-captured using a MAC version of the software. It is very similar to the PC version, but not totally identical. I found it somewhat distracting because I'm using the PC version; however the difference might not bother everyone.

I'm on lesson 30 and have decided I can't go on anymore. I'm buying another dreamweaver book. I apologize for leaving a negative feedback on somebody's work but feel I need to warn those who are considering buying this book. I'm not saying that everyone will find this book bad, but this is my experience.

BTW, although I don't have previous dreamweaver experience, I'm a professional computer technician, and thus am very proficient and comfortable using the computer.

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Comment on Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques by J. Clark

J. Clark — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 22:43:08 +0000

45 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

Clear, concise, excellent How-To guide to Dreamweaver CS3, July 10, 2007

J. Clark (metro New York City) -

This review is from: Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques (Paperback)

Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques is exactly the book I needed to help me move from Adobe GoLive, which is being phased out, to the similar -- but different enough to be confusing -- Dreamweaver CS3. This book showed what could be accomplished through a clear and detailed hands-on approach to this feature-rich but daunting program.

The book is well structured into 100 brief, informative sections. They are useful individually -- meaning you can look up precisely what you need for a task and get a complete, but not overwhelmingly exhaustive, explanation with step by step instructions. (If it's essential that you know some underlying technique, the author tells you where in the book to find it -- but mostly, what you need is right there.)

The sections are also tied together into a dozen chapters on related techniques, that progress logically from the basics of creating a site to the full range of bells and whistles, from styling to forms to embedding media (Flash, QuickTime, Windows Media) to DW CS3's cool new Spry animation effects. There is an extraordinary amount of useful information presented in just 250 pages, yet the book never feels crammed. However, it could have used a few more illustrations, including ones for completed projects -- although the author purposely leaves it up to the reader to implement the techniques that he explains. I like this approach.

The book is much more illuminating than DW CS3's built-in Help fragments, that constantly send you to yet more -- and more -- references, many times without really telling you how to do something. Here the author has the space to provide both brief context and practical instructions. This book is also a lot more useful than the overpriced Adobe Classroom in a Book (CiB) that focuses on about a dozen large-scale "representative" projects -- if you're lucky, somewhere in the countless steps is the small piece of info you need to get a specific job done. By contrast, this book is the best of both worlds: more detailed and practical than the built-in Help and much more accessible than CiB. Goldilocks would love this book, since it's not too small, and not too big -- it's just right. I also appreciate that, for all of its conciseness, the writing has a friendly 'can do' quality.

The main content is clearly separated from the subsidiary information presented in sidebars. This 'bonus information' often explains why it's best to do something a certain way (often to increase the accessibility of Web pages for people who are visually impaired, or who simply turn off images for faster browsing). The only major topic missing is how to connect a DW site to a database, which with all the flavors (ASP, Cold Fusion, many more) would require a separate guide of this length.

The book wisely devotes many sections to the features that are brand new in DW CS3, including a strong focus on CSS-based layouts. The Internet has adopted 'best practices' standards -- meaning CSS-based pages -- so the author focuses both on how to use Adobe's nice built-in templates (both basic and styled versions), and on how to create your own from scratch. The clunky table-based, or frames-based (UGH!), layouts many of us have been using are going, going, soon to be gone. That's why the focus here is on CSS layouts, which offer much greater design flexibility and control, and faster loading times (they take far less code than their table-based ancestors, e.g., instead of specifying a bunch of different fonts, over and over, with CSS you do it just once in a master Style Sheet). In stumbling through DW CS3, before getting this book, the single most confusing thing was "div tags" (that basically structure everything in the page layout) -- if only I'd had the brilliantly lucid explanation found here in Section 33 - Defining Div Tags! Now, it all makes sense -- thank you!

Although I think this is a five star book, there are a couple of frequently used items that I wish the author had included in full detail: (1) instructions -- in Section 55 - Formatting Image and Page Styles -- on how to create a 'floated' image with a caption (a border around it would be nice too), and (2) how to "bulletproof" a site, making sure that pages can expand properly if someone increases the font size (as opposed to breaking apart into an incoherent mess). In addition to this book, which for me is a clear top recommendation (I've pored over several of the other 'first out of the gate' DW CS3 guides in a local bookstore), I recommend Dan Cederholm's Bulletproof Web Design: Improving Flexibility and Protecting Against Worst-Case Scenarios With XHTML and CSS. I don't believe that Cederholm's recommendations are proprietary, since they are common sense (once he explains them) and very simple; but they would have made this How-Tos book even more valuable.

I'm still having fun experimenting with techniques --... Read more

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Comment on Adobe Digital Imaging How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques for Photoshop CS5, Lightroom 3, and Camera Raw 6 Reviews by Jay Watson "Jay Watson"

Jay Watson "Jay Watson" — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 22:39:36 +0000

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

Cool format. Encourages you to jump in., January 18, 2011

Jay Watson "Jay Watson" (San Francisco, CA) -

This review is from: Adobe Digital Imaging How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques for Photoshop CS5, Lightroom 3, and Camera Raw 6 (Paperback)

This text is geared toward beginners and intermediate users, but somehow Dan managed to include nearly something for everyone. For Lightroom, all the crucial info on importing, organizing, collections, developing, local tweaking with adjustment brushes, and exporting is covered. If you are new to LR this book will get you started! PhotoShop newbies get a run down on essentials like: preferences, Bridge (and mini Bridge), navigating inside PS, brushes, layers, and retouching techniques. They'll also be able to jump right into the nuts and bolts of masking, selecting, HDR, brush textures with bristle tips/mixture brushes, creating lens blur, and stitching panoramas. Beginners will love the easy layout. The format of tips encourages you to jump in without overloading your brain and eating away your precious weekends.

Both CS5 and LR3 have been out for a while and it is easy to forget all the new things included with their release. Dan shows you the good stuff without slowing you down with a history and background of what life was like in the Dark Ages. He cuts right to the chase. Advanced users may even enjoy looking over the book as a guide to see what they don't know or have forgotten.

4 Tips That May Have Slipped Past Your Radar (also in Adobe Digital Imaging How-To's)

#44 Exporting Slideshows as Video in Lightroom.
Once your slideshow is set up in the Slideshow module, go to "Export Video Button" and choose a video preset according to your needs. The Develop module is so powerful that I wonder how many people overlook the Slideshow module? LR 3 has added the ability to export a slideshow into a self contained video complete with and intro, transitions, and ending page.

#54 Mini Bridge
If you are used to Bridge, you'll have to remind yourself to try Mini Bridge. It behaves like a palette window inside PhotoShop allowing you to visually find files quickly. Click the icon panel that displays "Mb" on it to use Mini Bridge.

#80 Sharpening tool in PhotoShop CS5.
With the sharpen tool, check protect detail" in the options bar. Finally the sharpen tool becomes useful without causing the same nuclear pixel melting session that occurred in previous versions of PS.

#100 Image Processor
An oldie but goodie that is often overlooked. The Image Processor allows you to convert a group of images to JPEG, TIFF, or PSD format and/or resize them if needed. However instead of doing this through Adobe PhotoShop, I suggest selecting the images you want to address in Adobe Bridge then go to Tools->PhotoShop->Image Processor.

Overall: I would recommend this book to anyone getting started in Lightroom or PhotoShop and for seasoned vets who have skipped a version of LR or PS. Advanced users may thirst for more guru techniques, yet appreciate brushing up on tools that snuck past their radar. Dan is cool enough to recommend where to go next for anyone looking for more skills.

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Comment on Adobe Digital Imaging How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques for Photoshop CS5, Lightroom 3, and Camera Raw 6 Reviews by CCOSTA

CCOSTA — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 22:12:03 +0000

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

Step-by-step guide to CS5 and LR3 techniques, November 13, 2010

CCOSTA (CA) -

This review is from: Adobe Digital Imaging How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques for Photoshop CS5, Lightroom 3, and Camera Raw 6 (Paperback)

This how-to book for optimizing CS5 and LR3 is the right mix of written and visual instruction. Handy tips in the margins also provide a quick reference to best-practices for leveraging the power of these tools. The author organizes the information in a clear fashion with little room for newbies like me to get lost. I find the explanation of why a user may be interested in a particular very helpful as well. Over the course of the last few days I've established my preferences in both LR3 and CS5, streamlining my workflow. I've been able to improve upon my images using several of the post-processing techniques outlined in this book. A handy book to keep nearby when managing your post-production process. (Livermore Valley Camera Club member.)

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