Book Bytes – MyMac Magazine #55

Digital Photography Answers! Certified Tech Support
by Dave Johnson
Osborne/McGraw-Hill

ISBN 0-07-211884-9, 543 pages
$24.99 U.S., $34.99 Canada

It is both rare and refreshing to have the opportunity to review a book where I know almost as much as does the author. I have been involved in photography intensely for over 30 years, and I am thinking about shifting my focus from conventional photography to digital imagery.

All photography instruction consists of two stages: how to take decent pictures, and what to do with the darn things once the image making process is complete. Author Dave Johnson provides very solid, knowledgeable advice for selection of equipment and making the pictures, including detailed information on lighting, close-ups, and “Using Peripherals and Accessories.” Image storage and editing come next, in progressively greater detail, before readers can learn about digital distribution and (gasp) digital video.

Digital Photography Answers! is structured as a lengthy series of specific questions, which are answered via text, diagrams, photos, charts, and Windows-based screenshots, as appropriate. Did you ever need to understand:

• How do I make my own greeting cards?

• What kind of memory storage should I get for my digital camera?

• How do I reduce glare from glass or shiny objects in the picture?

and hundreds more similar questions? Look no further. The answers are here.

Photography is expensive, and the photographer’s greatest investment is time spent figuring out how to get something right that came out wrong. If I had never taught one photo seminar, and had instead insisted that each student absorb the basic advice in Digital Photography Answers!, the results would have been positive.

If you are wondering how relevant yesterday’s photo instruction is to tomorrow’s technology, take a cold shower. Understanding your equipment and medium will always get you to first base, a book such as this one will get you all the way to third base, and years of imaginative elbow grease will get you to home plate. For $25 U.S. this RECOMMENDED book is a steal.

 

Dave Johnson tells Book Bytes:

I wrote Digital Photography Answers as if it were the only book someone would ever have to buy about digital imaging. In other words, I included all the basics of traditional photography, like composition and lighting. But I also made it specific to the digital medium, of course, with gobs of details on editing images on the computer, printing for framing, and that sort of thing. I had a lot of fun with the special effects chapter and finally put my ability to create Star Trek-like phaser blasts to use. I hope readers enjoy this book as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Adobe InDesign for Dummies
by Deke McClelland

and Amy Thomas Buscaglia
Dummies Press

ISBN 0-7645-0599-8, 356 pages
$19.99 U.S., $29.99 Canada, £18.99 U.K.

Does anyone still use PageMaker? How about QuarkXPress? I know more than a few people who would like to “deep-six” Quark, in spite of using it professionally for years. This new book on the long-awaited “Quark-killer” will find an enthusiastic audience, and will be the first of many titles on Adobe’s new desktop publishing (DTP) application.

The authors emphasize that potential readers will be new to InDesign, yet will cover the map with regard to experience with DTP. The modest cost of Adobe InDesign for Dummies should repay itself during the first day’s work with the new software.

Opening chapters cover the essentials, and are liberally illustrated with useful screenshots from InDesign’s windows and dialog boxes. By Chapter Five, entitled “Rock Yer Blocks Off,” users are working with blocks of text and starting to customize their text-entry possibilities. Fonts and typography come next, including scaling and kerning. The writing is both lively and informative, which I applaud.

Chapter Ten is important: “Graphic Language about Graphic Imagery.” InDesign has neat and nifty methods of handling your DTP images, friends. Deke and Amy take readers deeper into the text and illustration procedures, before delving into “Exporting Documents to HTML” and similar online publishing features.

Final sections cover bunches of “tens,” such as:

• Ten Terrific Typeface Families, and

• Ten Shortcuts Everyone Should Know.

I know one thing. Before working with InDesign, I intend to study Adobe InDesign for Dummies carefully, and put its RECOMMENDED wisdom to work.

 
Genealogy Online, Millennium Edition
by Elizabeth Powell Crowe
Computing McGraw-Hill

ISBN 0-07-135103-5, 335 pages
$19.99 U.S.

For genealogy hobbyists and professionals the Internet is a dream come true. This book helps readers make the dream a satisfying one, because online research can be frustrating.

Genealogy Online begins with essential hardware and connectivity info, current to DSL, then basic genealogy software and Internet sites, written primarily for newcomers to the Net. The book becomes more specific by Chapters Five and Six, in which recommended Usenet newsgroups and Internet mailing lists are itemized.

Next, over forty pages are devoted to dozens of websites, with enough people-oriented URLs and AOL keywords to keep readers browsing and following links for several decades. The author is personally involved with a project called RootsWeb, which she explains in Chapter Nine.

You say you want information on online libraries, or the Mormon Church database, or commercial genealogy sites? How about a lengthy description of America Online’s “Golden Gate Genealogy Forum” and the comparable forum on CompuServe? They all are here, clearly presented.

With a name like Nemerovski, you would think I should have an easy time with genealogy research. Armed with Genealogy Online, Millennium Edition, let’s hope you’re right. RECOMMENDED.

 
Professional Studio Techniques Design Essentials
With Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrated,
Third Edition
by Luanne Seymour Cohen
Adobe/Peachpit Press

ISBN 1-56830-472-2, 121 pages
$39.99 U.S., $59.95 Canada, £36.99 U.K.

Let’s get something out of the way first. This book is slim in page-length, large in price, and huge in physical footprint: 9 x 12 inches (23 x 30 cm). It’s an oddball, with an enormous title. Is it worth the price and modest shelf space? (The author wrote to explain that the reason the book is large is so that it will lay flat when opened so the user has both hands free for keyboard and mouse.)

Ooh, I think I will like it, if I can find enough room on my crowded desk to open the book. Chapter One, “Drawing,” starts with a 14-step lesson for users of Adobe Illustrator 8.0 or later, on custom borders. The pages in Professional Studio Techniques Design Essentials are so wide that in two spacious columns the author has positioned parallel sets of numbered tasks alongside the drawn results. What’s next?

Great! The format is consistent, utilizing the two-page lesson throughout. I just learned how do other projects with Illustrator, including quick 3-D boxes and pie charts. Still doing drawing, we proceed to Photoshop 5.0 or later, for a fascinating assignment on perspective grids. Hey, Luanne, you can draw and teach.

I am definitely NOT a painter, but many of you are. The next unit has some exciting painting projects using both Adobe applications. (Long pause.) Oops. I forgot to continue the book review, because I became so engrossed in learning how to make color-tinted photographs and neon graphics.

Chapter Three proceeds from simple patterns and textures into textured 3-D graphics. Text effects come next, and they are stunning: corroded type; rainbow scratched type; and several more. The book concludes with special effects and web techniques, and… (John again forgets to keep writing). A recommended reading list wraps things up, including many titles previously reviewed here in Book Bytes.

If you’re a serious student or working visual artist who uses Photoshop or Illustrator, hustle yourself over to the nearest bookstore to determine if you are as excited about this new RECOMMENDED edition of Professional Studio Techniques Design Essentials as I am.

 
Hewlett-Packard Official Scanner Handbook
by David D. Busch, Susan Krzywicki, and Laurel Burden
IDG Books Worldwide

ISBN 0-7645-3304-5, 470 pages
$19.99 U.S., $29.99 Canada

This is the third book in the HP series from IDG. I hope more are on the way, because this first bunch is good. I can’t claim to be a whiz with scanners, so this topic is of personal interest.

Looking at the Hewlett-Packard Official Scanner Handbook from the page-end side, I notice a dark section that takes up roughly the final third of the book. What does it signify? Oh, goody—nearly 150 pages of “Projects for the Home” are contained in the final four chapters, with scanner projects for home, for kids, for the seasons, and for websites. Let’s come back to these activities after examining the bulk of the text.

The opening 140 pages, in seven chapters, cover “Using Scanners,” taking the newcomer from how the darn things work through an array of practical techniques to color optimization and image editing. Lots of space is devoted to definitions and explanations, with very good illustrations, photos, charts, and screenshots. Chapter Four, on “Resolution, Interpolation, and Sharp Images,” should be required reading for everyone desiring to achieve intermediate status and beyond.

Many image editing applications are described in Chapter Seven, and understanding this concentrated knowledge will save you much more time and money than it takes to buy and read the Hewlett-Packard Official Scanner Handbook. Chapter Eight contains specific hardware and software troubleshooting procedures, with an emphasis on HP’s products.

 

Author David Busch comments:

Although Hewlett-Packard’s blessing means a lot, I really tried to fill the bulk of this book with information that can help users of any brand scanner get the most from these sensationally-useful image capture devices.

 

Nearly 100 pages of beginning and advanced projects for the office come before the step-by-step home exercises. I consider this book to be a three-in-one volume: essential information; no-nonsense office activities; and fun stuff to do at home. The writing and graphics are straightforward and well-structured. Looks like we have a winner. Book Bytes RECOMMENDS heartily this $20 book, and after I get my new scanner I will put the Hewlett-Packard Official Scanner Handbook to personal use immediately.

 
Start with a Digital Camera:
A Guide to Using Digital Cameras
to Create High-Quality Graphics
by John Odam
Peachpit Press

ISBN 0-201-35424-1, 145 pages
$34.99 U.S., $52.50 Canada

How can I not like this author? He has contributed to several of Book Bytes’ previously-recommended digital art and design books, his photo on page 146 shows a jolly gent plucking some sort of mandolin, and he sells a special shampoo for beards, at

This book is another of the rare long-thin-expensive breed that I like so much, in spite of its (at first glance) incongruous price, relative to its size. Stop me if I get carried away, but Start with a Digital Camera features excellent design, with custom layouts on every handsome two-page spread. Text, illustrations, photos, diagrams, charts, and before-after examples liberally decorate and add stylistically to every chapter. Even the Contents pages are visually engaging.

In thirteen well-produced units, readers can learn about more than just technical facts and figures, including:

• working with people and objects

• using digital photos in desktop, graphics arts, and on-screen situations

• manipulating and modifying images

and quite a bit more.

Let’s turn at random to page… 77, for Chapter Nine: “Creating Textures and Backgrounds.” Hey, this is neat. Odam offers six pages of examples with dozens of fascinating organic-subject images that can be used to enhance your final projects, such as rock, foliage, and water textures. His final results are included, to show how he got from concept to completion.

I happen to know a lot about photography, but not much about what to do with the images for enhanced creativity. If you are a visual artist or digital photographer who wants to learn from the best in the business, look over Start with a Digital Camera to determine if this RECOMMENDED title is what you need to get those artistic juices flowing.

 
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to
Protecting Yourself Online
by Preston Gralla
Alpha / Que / Macmillan

ISBN 0-7897-2035-3, 348 pages
$16.99 U.S., $25.95 Canada, £15.99 U.K.

I have to hand it to the publisher of the Complete Idiot’s series. After a slow start, they are breaking new ground for computer book readers, with first-rate writers and topics that don’t simply copycat the Dummies competitors. We met Preston Gralla last month with his book on online shopping. Welcome back, Preston.

Preston knows Internet security from the inside-out, and explains it so interested newcomers and old timers will understand the subject: passwords; credit cards; viruses; child pornography; and plenty more. Your ISP and online account are important first areas of defense, with invasive web databases and online scams running a close second and third. Once you’ve been burned you need to know where to turn—and then how to proceed—including consumer services and small claims court.

Spam, or unsolicited junk email, is a big deal, and a big nuisance. Gralla devotes a hearty chunk of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Protecting Yourself Online to email privacy and web security, before addressing the monster (not really) issue of cookies. Online chat rooms and Usenet discussion groups are primary sources of your user name, and potentially, your password. Proceed with caution.

Part Six is important: “Protecting Your Children and Family Online.” The author is a parent, and speaks with the voice of experience. His advice, if used effectively even just once, may be worth the entire modest price of the book.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Protecting Yourself Online contains more information than most of us will ever need to know. Writing and design are in keeping with the well-considered content. I don’t think this book has any equals in the marketplace, so Book Bytes is pleased to RECOMMEND it.

 
Microsoft Office 98 for Macintosh:
The Comprehensive Guide
by Ned Snell and Brian J. Little
Coriolis Group

ISBN 1-57610-279-3, 562 pages
$39.99 U.S., $59.99 Canada

I don’t spend much time thinking about Office 98, because I’m a dedicated AppleWorks/ClarisWorks person, but when I need to work with an Office module I plunge into a nearby book on the subject. This title from Coriolis has been lounging on the Book Bytes shelf for many months, and deserves a diligent evaluation.

Thumbing through the three appendices, I’m pleased to report the authors have given ample consideration to installing and configuring Office, using the Explorer browser, and a concise description of fonts. Heading back toward the front of Microsoft Office 98 for Macintosh: The Comprehensive Guide, I observe seventeen chapters, ranging from “discovering” and “getting to know” the monster suite to “Office 98 and the Internet.”

From the beginning, the writing is friendly and helpful, and the pages include many large, clear screenshots. Newcomers to Office 98 will feel comfortable, and quickly will be drawn into the text. Boxed sidebar “FYI” tips are plentiful, but they are printed over an unnecessary, confusing “bricks and mortar” background. Hey, book designers: the thematic approach is a great idea, but makes reading the darn thing too difficult.

After the introductory chapters, Word 98 has 150 pages of progressively more detailed instruction, followed by hefty (if shorter) units on PowerPoint and Excel, plus a 60-page chapter on Outlook Express. The material is geared toward newbies, which I applaud, because these users are the ones most likely to buy and use a book, then advance past the need for it.

If you don’t already own a comparable book, and need some solid knowledge on Microsoft Office 98 for Macintosh, look into this RECOMMENDED title for your work or personal library.

 

•John Nemerovski•

Websites mentioned: