Tracy Sam

September 1, 2001

The Playing With Fire book is unique in the fact that it uses a question and answer approach. This book doesn't teach you how to use Fireworks nor does it claim to. It is meant to help inspire you and help with specific problems.

The examples in the book are a collection of miscellaneous this and that. In most cases it's pretty useful information but I felt it falls short when it comes to value. I happened to have seen a good portion of what's now in the book on the Playing With Fire Web site prior to the books conception. (Most have since been removed) But if you've never been to the Web site the information will be new to you so you'll more than likely be pleased. 

The book is rated at intermediate to Advanced users. The examples are closer to beginner, what makes it intermediate is that all the steps involved are not taught, you are expected to have a level of understanding before using this book.

As far as inspiring, I wasn't particularly inspired by it either, there are not examples of complete projects, just a button here, a stroke there and so on.

One of the best portions of the book is chapter 5 which is Processing and Kneading Photographic Images. One tutorials is a contributions by Sandee Cohen which shows you how to mask and make vignettes without throwing away pixels. It's unclear who contributed what since the author does not specifically credit each individual contributor. I happen to recognize some of the contributions from the Web site which did credit them, plus in some cases like Sandees, a little blurb about her appears near the end of the tutorial. But for many of the contributors there names are in the Acknowledgements only or their bio is included on a page that has several topics, so you have no idea who did what. Maybe this is minor but I'd like to know who wrote by favorite topics so I could see if that person had a book or resources that I could look for more information.

In summary, the book is fine for beginners and those on the verge of intermediate that want some tips and tricks to using Fireworks. The value, 221 pages for $49.99 can only be accessed by yourself. For this reviewer because I'd already seen a good bit of it for free, I was quite disappointed.

As an aside, I did review the Fireworks 4 f/x & Design book as well and it can be seen at Amazon. I'm not submitting it here because Vikki has already done a review on that particular book.

Copyright 2001, Tracy Sam, All Rights Reserved