To learn more, get reviews, or purchase these titles through Amazon.com, please click on the book cover graphic.  As I mentioned earlier, I own and have read all of the titles below with "Photoshop 5/5.5 WOW Book", "Adobe Photoshop 5.5:   Classroom in a Book", and "Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects" being my top three picks.

Adobe Photoshop 5.5 Classroom in a Book, Special Web Edition, like others in the fine Classroom in a Book series, is somewhere between a manual and a tutorial; the lessons can be read straight through or referenced on a need-to-know basis.	Walk into a design studio and you just might see the popular The Photoshop 5.0/5.5 Wow! Book on the shelf. If there's a technique or effect that would work perfectly for the job at hand, whether it's adding a chrome or chiseled-in-stone look, or simply better understanding the usage of the lasso tool, designers, photographers and illustrators know to reach for this book.	They use great detail to explain how Photoshop addresses color, explaining color-related issues such as the differences between RGB, CMYK, and other color models. In doing so, they help you work with Photoshop's color management systems, including its newly "device-independent" RGB editing space, along with other tonal and color-correction tools.
All the filters, selection techniques, and other bells and whistles won't matter if you can't make the image look good in print. When the first edition of Professional Photoshop published, it not only changed the workflow of professional photographers and retouchers, but also attracted non-experts with its intuitive, interactive approach. This fully revised edition continues emphasizing by-the-numbers correction	After Effects is the de-facto industry standard program for high-end desktop motion graphics work. This book gives a real-world production-level understanding of how the program works, and how to use it efficiently to achieve quality results. It offers a unique teaching style, combining explanations, full-color illustrations, and numerous example projects on the accompanying CD-ROM that illustrate each concept in action.	Adobe After Effects is the ultimate tool for creating motion graphics and visual effects for film, video, or the Web. The latest version boasts exciting new features, such as a built-in file format, cross-platform plug-ins, and powerful new video and audio effects.Adobe After Effects 4.0 Classroom in a Book teaches users to master After Effects in short, focused lessons that explore all of its tools and techniques. Readers can follow along with the cross-platform CD and the book's lessons.
If you've set out to master Premiere 5 and don't know where to begin, get this thorough, well-illustrated book. It guides you through everything from basic interfaces to the process of assembling complex movies, and features step-by-step instruction and project files on an included CD-ROM. Each chapter also includes review questions and answers as well as an "exploring on your own" section.	Flash 4 is Macromedia's extremely complicated but powerful Web animation application. "For us, the Flash learning process was extremely painful," write authors Patton and Franklin. And since they observed many others expressing pain similar to theirs in the Flash newsgroup, they are now sharing all their hard-earned secrets in Flash 4! Creative Web Animation. Most important in learning Flash, the book suggests, is that there be a certain order: "solid comprehension ... gained in a sequential manner."	Flash is a great name for an application; who wouldn't want to add flash to their designs? In practice, Macromedia Flash 4 is a complex set of tools for creating animated and interactive graphics that can be played within most up-to-date Web browsers. Flash 4 Visual QuickStart Guide is a well-paced, thorough introduction to all that this powerful application has to offer.