Adobe After Effects Classroom in a Book (2020 release)

This is the 2nd book I bought on After Effects. My first purchase (different book) was a disappointment because the writing style was difficult to follow. This book is laid out well and the writing is clear. I just finished chapter 5 and I have already learned a ton. I went through many of the official Adobe AE tutorials and didn't learn a fraction of what this book has taught me in the first 5 chapters. AE is now a tool in my repertoire and I look forward to finishing the rest of the book by the end of next week.Edit April 10, 2020 - After finishing the book it is still a firm 5 stars. There were 2 exercises in the book where I got confused, but the completed versions of the projects were a great help. The book did exactly what I needed: provided me with a good understanding of the fundamentals of AE. Now I can go forth into the Youtube jungle of AE tutorials and make better sense of them. If you are brand new to AE, this is a great book to get started with.

Exactly what I needed and way cheaper than at my school bookstore! Recommend!

Adobe Premiere Pro includes many tools for creating motion graphics and visual effects in film and video. However, if you really are trying to create something beyond standard fare, the Adobe Creative Cloud Suite includes the software After Effects that will allow you to create jazzier stuff. There's little instinctive about After Effects, so a new user will require a basic introduction.This book will do the job, although it will be no easy task because of the complexity of the software. It provides a number of tutorials for the reader to work through that will familiarize you with After Effects' capabilities. Files can be downloaded from the publisher's website that can then be used in each of the step-by-step tutorials. If you want to have your titles race across the screen, or to change the background in your shot from your living room to the Grand Canyon or erase that annoying sign or change the name of that restaurant in your video, the authors walk you through the steps involved. They will even tell you how easily After Effects integrates with Premiere Pro.I complained in a review of a previous edition that the After Effects interface was so dense and complicated that when the authors told you to select a certain menu or button it was often difficult to even find the menu or button. That problem is solved because purchase of the dead trees version of the book also gives you access to the electronic version. Each section of the electronic book starts with a video that covers the following material, almost word for word. (There are tips and notes included in the rest electronic version that are not included either the video or the book; they are not essential to learning After Effects but might prove useful to some folks.) These videos show you a screen shot of what's in the tutorial so it's much easier to find an obscure button. I've become so enamored of the electronic version that I opened both that version and After Effects on my desktop and flipped back and forth by just pressing Alt-Tab on my PC keyboard. No more juggling the book on my lap. My only complaint was that sometimes two or three videos appeared in a section. If you opened the later videos full screen for ease of viewing, you were returned to the start of the section when you minimized the video rather than tthe spot you were in before maximizing.Recently added features of After Effects are covered. The lessons covered in the 2019 edition of the book appear to be the same as those in the 2020 version. I'll beat my drum by saying some publisher should consider publishing a book that just covers the new and updated features of the software.Even with this book, it's hard to learn to use After Effects well, but this book provides a solid foundation.Note: The publisher provided me with a review copy of this book at no charge.

I bought this book to assist in learning After Effects. The book has some good information BUT very often it appears the steps are not up-to-date or sometimes just don't work. I thought maybe I was an idiot, so I tried some of the steps (multiple times) and then checked with Adobe support. For example, on page 75, Steps 5 (preview presets in Bridge) simply doesn't work. Bridge will NOT preview the effect (unless, of course, you KNOW to open the PREVIEW window in Bridge. The instructions don't explain that). You can double-click to apply the preset FROM Bridge but from there the instructions are confusing on just what panel you're supposed to open. When I finally got some semblance of the instructions to work, some items that should have appeared just didn't so I just gave up on the project for now and will seek answers from other sources. Also, it would be nice if the author shared some key information upfront, like how to change the timeline from fps to seconds, how to manually select seconds in the preview panel, etc. I gave up on this book and went to online videos (Adobe, LinkedIn Learning, Creative Live, etc.), which provided MUCH better information for getting started in this robust program. I've had other Classroom in A Books for other Adobe programs and found some of the same kind of issues. This is the last one of this series I'll buy. Very disappointing overall.

This book is a waste of money. I got more out of 4 hours of Youtube videos then this entire book combined. All these same tutorials are covered in the Adobe online FREE tutorials. I was hoping for a more in depth look into the toys and WHY we do the things we do in these tutorials. But not in this book, it grudgingly drags you through baby level tutorials that I was yawning at within minutes. If any class requires you to use this book and all they do is teach from it, run for the hills and drop out of that class now. Go to any After Effects Youtuber or the Adobe tutorials online and just strap some headphones on and learn something. Don't waste a dime on this book.

This is ok if you want to follow a step by step approach and hope you learn what you need along the way. Its not great if you are also hoping to get background information or general how does this software work information.