Learn Adobe Flash Professional CS5 by Video: Core Training in Rich Media Communication

I've been teaching Flash for about 7 years now at a local university. Over the years I've gone through many books to help students learn all aspects of Flash from the basics of using the timeline, creatign and using symbols, managing tweening, and everything else. Of course I can show the students everything there is to know about Flash but I always found it hard to find a complete training tool that students can use in the classroom and at home to complement my teachings.

I pretty much went through every book on the market, whether in be the 'Visual Guide' series or the ones from Adobe or anything in between. I mean literally close to probably 20 or 30 books in that timespan. I even use videos by [...] and other. Trust me, you name, I have bought to try for my class. But always I find I need to use more than 1 book/video series to have my students buy that would cover everything I wanted them to know. Usually I ended up writing up a few lessons to supplement the material... Read more

Do you want a step in the right direction to create almost anything you've ever wanted with Adobe Flash Professional CS5? With this product, it's definitely possible.

When I first recieved the product, all I had to do was insert the CD it came with, flip open the back cover of the box, and peel off the book. That was it! I was ready to learn in only seconds.

The book and videos work in conjunction with each other, but you can read or watch either one in your own time and still understand all of what's to offer. The best part is the videos comes with subtitles, so if you're unable to listen to it, you can still understand what's going on.

Both the book and video tutorials teach the basics all the way up to the more advanced things Flash has to offer. It will teach you how to get started, use the tools, create and import artwork, create text, work with tweens, use action scripting, importing and editing video/audio, and finally how to test and publish... Read more

This is a thorough introduction to Flash CS5 and I recommend it to newcomers to the software. Even though I'm familiar with other Adobe CS5 products, I learned quite a lot.

My main gripes are:

(1) Kevin's voice was monotonous. Kelly sounded like she was addressing a kindie class, and I felt like slapping her after a while. I'm 70 years old, Kellie, I'm an adult. To give her credit, however, she definitely knows her subject. Consequently, a couple of lessons at a time was all I could ever manage.

(2) The video uses Adobe Air, which is restrictive and unfriendly, as you can't resize the screen to make it more readable. The captions were also too small for my aging eyes.

If these gripes don't bother you, go for it. It's good value for the money.