50 Books to Improve Your Marketplace Files

No matter how experienced you are in your field of creative expertise, you always have room for improvement. Consider this post your “continuing education” program, as it includes a list of books for both beginners and advanced users. I have compiled ten of the best books that cover all five of the marketplaces. Check them out, learn a few things, and create some new files for the marketplaces!

Layers: The Complete Guide to Photoshop’s Most Powerful Feature
When Photoshop guru Matt Kloskowski was asked why he wrote this book, he replied, “It’s simple: I wanted to write the Photoshop book that I wished was around when I was learning Photoshop”. You’ve always known that layers were the key to understanding Photoshop, and now you have a resource to show you exactly how.

How to Cheat in Photoshop CS3: The art of creating photorealistic montages
A fun project-led workbook for anyone who wants to get to know Photoshop more intimately. Covering all the techniques you’ll ever need, it’s packed with inspirational projects to try – from combining body parts, to making introduced light sources, shadows, textures and reflections look realistic. With this handy guide, the digital world really is your plaything.

Creative Photoshop: Digital Illustration and Art Techniques
Derek’s work, and the approach he takes to explaining his techniques, are excellent. His ideas are innovative, his methodology unique, and the results are breathtaking.” Steve Caplin, UK based digital illustrator, author of How to Cheat in Photoshop –Steve Caplin, UK based digital illustrator, author of How to Cheat in Photoshop.

The Adobe Illustrator CS3 Wow! Book
For years, Sharon Steuer and her international Wow! team have been reaching out to the world of professional illustrators to showcase the range and quality of work these artists are doing in Illustrator. In this revised edition of the best-selling and award-winning Illustrator WOW! Book, youll find tips, tricks, and techniques derived from actual projects from more than 100 of these top Illustrator artists.

Real World Adobe Illustrator CS3
Real World Adobe Illustrator CS3 is the definitive reference to Adobe’s industry-standard vector graphics software. With an easy, engaging style, author Mordy Golding takes readers through all of the features of the program, explaining not only how to use the multitude of features but also why and when to use them.

Adobe Illustrator CS3 How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques
Adobe Illustrator CS3 is more than just the world’s most popular and powerful illustration tool: As part of the Adobe’s Creative Suite 3, it’s a key component of an overall design workflow that lets users work seamlessly among all of their graphics applications to create graphically rich content for print, Web, motion graphics, and mobile devices.

Adobe Illustrator CS4 Classroom in a Book
Adobe Illustrator CS4 Classroom in a Book contains 15 lessons. The book covers the basics of learning Illustrator and provides countless tips and techniques to help you become more productive with the program. You can follow the book from start to finish or choose only those lessons that interest you.

Adobe InDesign CS4 Styles: How to Create Better, Faster Text and Layouts
Tap into the far-reaching potential of InDesign styles—from simple drop cap formatting to cross-media export to XHTML. Styles have the power to transform how design and production professionals approach and accomplish any project. Adopting a style-centric workflow can reduce tasks that would normally take days to mere hours, and tasks that would take hours to minutes or even seconds. Less time spent on repetitive tasks means more time for creating your best work.

Professional Design Techniques with Adobe Creative Suite 3
Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Standard brings together under one roof the tools that design professionals use on a daily basis. Designing in an integrated environment results in greater efficiency and streamlines the development of flexible designs. In this book, author and distinguished designer Scott Citron leads designers of all kinds through the ins and outs of working with the components in the suite.

Instant InDesign: Designing Templates for Fast and Efficient Page Layout
Instant InDesign is the first comprehensive guide to Adobe InDesign that focuses exclusively on the art of template design and production. You’ll learn everything you need to know—from key design principles and basic template architecture to advanced automation techniques. With practical tips and real-world examples, you’ll discover how to translate your great ideas into industrial-strength templates.

Flash CS4 Professional Digital Classroom
Flash CS4 Professional Digital Classroom is like having a personal instructor guiding readers through each lesson, while they work at their own pace. This book includes 13 self-paced lessons that let readers discover essential skills and explore new features and capabilities of Adobe Flash Professional.

Adobe Flash CS4 Professional How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques
Users new to the software as well as veteran users unfamiliar with added features need quick access to key features and fundamental techniques. Adobe Flash CS4 Professional: 100 Essential Techniques provides users with what they need to know to start working in Flash.

Foundation Flash CS3 for Designers
Flash is one of the most engaging and innovative, and versatile technologies available—allowing the creation of pretty much anything from simple slideshows, animated banners and icons and cartoons, to Rich Internet Applications, Interactive videos, and dynamic user interfaces for web sites, kiosks, or DVDs.

Foundation Flash CS3 Video
Video is one of the most exciting features on today’s Internet, with widespread adoption being made possible by advances in bandwidth and software. But simply streaming video clips to Web users is only the tip of the iceberg!

How to Cheat in Flash CS3: The art of design and animation in Adobe Flash CS3
A valuable resource loaded with helpful tips and hints for Flash users at all skill levels. It is filled with practical how-to examples for artists and animators, presented in a clear step-by-step manner with illustrations documenting each step along the way.

Flash + After Effects: Add Broadcast Features to Your Flash designs
Combine these two powerhouse applications to expand your multimedia horizons. Flash + After Effects gives the experienced Flash designer a working understanding of the After Effects toolset with professional techniques that raise the design bar for Web, broadcast, or CD/DVD delivery.

Foundation Flash Cartoon Animation
Whether you are an experienced Flash designer or developer looking for a guide to doing animation in Flash, or a novice to Flash who is looking for an effective way to create and distribute animations, this book will prove invaluable to you. Covering every aspect of Flash animation, the book is a fast-paced yet thorough review of the Flash animation process.

Flash Cartoon Animation: Learn from the Pros
You want to make an animated film. You’ve got the idea. You’ve got Macromedia Flash. But where do you start? What’s the best way to script your cartoon, how do you start animating with Flash, what do you really need to know in order to get your ideas out there, and make you famous?

The Essential Guide to Flash CS4 with ActionScript
For any professional designer or developer working in the world of web technologies or multimedia, Flash is the must-have application, and knowing how to use it effectively is vital. Add in ActionScript 3.0, and Flash becomes an even more powerful tool for the development of high-performance web applications.

Foundation Game Design with Flash
We’ve all sneaked the odd five minutes here or there playing the latest Flash game that someone sent round the office, but creating those games is trickier than it looks. The aim of Foundation Game Design with Flash is to take you, even if you’ve minimal multimedia or programming experience, through a series of step-by-step examples and detailed case studies to the point where you’ll have the skills to independently design any conceivable 2D game using Flash and ActionScript.

Sexy Web Design: Creating Interfaces that Work
Sexy Web Design is an easy-to-follow guide that reveals the secrets of how to build your own breathtaking web interfaces from scratch. You’ll be guided through the entire process of creating a gorgeous, usable web site by applying the timeless principles of user-centered design.

Web Standards Solutions: The Markup and Style Handbook
Welcome to the expanded second edition of Dan Cederholm’s best-selling Web Standards Solutions. Web Standards are the standard technology specifications enforced by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to make sure that web designers and browser manufacturers are using the same technology syntax.

Designing with Web Standards
Standards, argues Jeffrey Zeldman in Designing With Web Standards, are our only hope for breaking out of the endless cycle of testing that plagues designers hoping to support all possible clients. In this book, he explains how designers can best use standards–primarily XHTML and CSS, plus ECMAScript and the standard Document Object Model (DOM)–to increase their personal productivity and maximize the availability of their creations.

Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
Usability design is one of the most important–yet often least attractive–tasks for a Web developer. In Don’t Make Me Think, author Steve Krug lightens up the subject with good humor and excellent, to-the-point examples.

WordPress Theme Design: A complete guide to creating professional WordPress themes
This title will take you through the ins and outs of creating sophisticated professional themes for the WordPress personal publishing platform. It will walk you through clear, step-by-step instructions to build a custom WordPress theme.

The Web Designer’s Idea Book
The Web Designer’s Idea Book includes more than 700 websites arranged thematically, so you can find inspiration for layout, color, style and more. Author Patrick McNeil has cataloged more than 20,000 sites on his website, and showcased in this book are the very best examples.

Designing Web Interfaces: Principles and Patterns for Rich Interactions
Want to learn how to create great user experiences on today’s Web? In this book, UI experts Bill Scott and Theresa Neil present more than 75 design patterns for building web interfaces that provide rich interaction.

Visual Design for the Modern Web
Just as great artists must understand their tools, great Web designers must understand the technology behind their art. In Visual Design for the Web, author Penny McIntire shows novice Web designers how to use their tools–including HTML, CSS, and JavaScript–in conjunction with the principles of aesthetics and usability to become masters of their craft.

JavaScript: The Missing Manual
In a clear, entertaining way, the book starts out by teaching you how to build a basic JavaScript program. Then, once you’ve mastered the structure and terminology, you’ll learn how to use advanced JavaScript tools to add useful interactivity to your sites quickly and painlessly, rather than scripting everything from scratch.

jQuery in Action
A good web development framework anticipates what you need to do and makes those tasks easier and more efficient; jQuery practically reads your mind. Developers of every stripe-hobbyists and professionals alike-fall in love with jQuery the minute they’ve reduced 20 lines of clunky JavaScript into three lines of elegant, readable code.

FL Studio Power!: The Comprehensive Guide
Get ready to master the power of FL Studio with FL STUDIO POWER: THE COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE! Due to its instant overview and loop-friendly appeal, musicians and producers are flocking to FL Studio (formerly FruityLoops) in droves. But many musicians and producers aren’t aware of everything FL Studio has to offer, or how to maximize the program to its full potential.

Remixer’s Bible Build Better Beats
The Remixer’s Bible is a comprehensive collection of interviews and dance music production tips from Keyboard magazine. From downtempo and hip-hop to house and trance, this book is full of insider information on techniques the pros use to create world-class remixes and dance tracks.

The Complete Guide to Remixing
A comprehensive handbook of the history, technology, craft, and art of remixing. Learn what software and hardware to buy, software tips and shortcuts, and absolutely everything about remixing on a personal computer.

Apple Pro Training Series: Logic Pro 8 and Logic Express 8
This brand-new Apple-certified guide, reconceived for Logic’s new interface, uses all-new projects and media files to show you how to record, produce, and polish your musical creations with Apple’s professional audio software. Veteran audio producer David Nahmani uses step-by-step, project-based instruction and straightforward explanations to teach everything from basic music creation to advanced production techniques.

Logic Pro 8: Audio and Music Production
Logic is a powerful piece of software that can often prove to be daunting and difficult to navigate but help is at hand whether you are a Pro or Express use. By providing comprehensive and systematic coverage of the software philosophy and the features of the programme in detail, this book will enable you to get the most out of Logic when creating music.

Going Pro with Logic Pro 8
Logic Pro is arguably the number one digital audio workstation among professional musicians and composers, at home in both professional and project studios worldwide. “Going Pro with Logic Pro 8” is an expert level book that addresses the needs of the professional Logic user.

Reason 4 Ignite
Reason 4 Ignite! helps you get up to speed in Reason quickly by dropping you right into the action with the authorÂ’s guidance so that before you know it, you are really in the Reason groove! This book is not hard work. You will not find long lists of features and difficult theoretical explanations to wrap your head around.

Reason 4 Power!
Get ready to put the power of Reason 4 to work! This comprehensive guide shows you how to get the most out of this popular music production program, while providing insights and tips that not only teach you the program but will help you make better music.

The Chord Wheel: The Ultimate Tool for All Musicians
Master chord theory … in minutes! The Chord Wheel is a revolutionary device that puts the most essential and practical applications of chord theory into your hands. This tool will help you: Improvise and Solo – Talk about chops!

Pro Tools 101 Official Courseware
Digidesign’s Official Pro Tools 101 Courseware takes a comprehensive approach to learning the fundamentals of Pro Tools|HD, Pro Tools LE, or Pro Tools M-Powered systems. Now updated for Pro Tools 8 software, this new edition from the definitive authority on Pro Tools covers everything you need to know to complete a Pro Tools project.

Motion Picture and Video Lighting
Written by a professional in the field, this comprehensive book reveals inside information based on years of experience and explores the challenges faced by cinematographers, lighting directors, gaffers and grips. Whether the reader is professional or a student, this book will be a useful reference.

Editing Digital Video : The Complete Creative and Technical Guide
A “complete creative and technical guide” for editing digital video seems like an overly ambitious concept. It is surprising how well the authors manage to accomplish it. The goal of the book, stated in the 2nd paragraph is “to teach anyone, amateurs or professionals, how to edit on any digital video editing system and achieve results.”

After Effects Apprentice
After Effects Apprentice’ provides a strong foundation for the aspiring motion graphics designer or visual effects artist. It is an excellent resource to help users get up to speed in After Effects quickly and to maximize their creative expression.

The After Effects Illusionist
This cookbook contains recipe after recipe that allow you to harness the full power of the native plug-in effects in the After Effects application. In a step-by-step manner, author Chad Perkins guides you through the creation and application of each and every native plug-in effect available for use in the AE toolset.

Adobe After Effects CS4 Visual Effects and Compositing Studio Techniques
This is the only book in the After Effects market to focus exclusively on the creation of visual effects, and is a one-stop resource for anyone who wants in-depth explanations that demystify the realm of visual effects and how they were created, thanks to veteran author Mark Christiansen’s friendly and accessible style.

Apple Pro Training Series: Motion 3
In this guide to Apple’s revolutionary motion graphics software, commercial artists Damian Allen, Bryce Button, and Mark Spencer teach you to create cutting-edge animations, show opens, promos, logos, and effects while you learn Motion 3.

Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects
Motion graphics and moving images are essential to communicating in a memorable way. Trish and Chris Meyer are masters of their craft and are uniquely qualified to guide anyone learning Adobe After Effects.

Adobe After Effects CS4 Classroom in a Book
Visual effects and motion graphics pros of all stripes – from broadcast professionals to VFX supervisors to Web designers who need to produce occasional video segments – will welcome the dramatically accelerated features provided in the brand-new After Effects CS4.

Apple Pro Training Series: Motion 4
In this best-selling guide to Motion 4, you’ll create eight sophisticated projects including a 3D show promo, a network-style title sequence, a DVD motion menu, and an actual temp effect used in Overture Film’s Traitor. Each chapter represents a complete lesson, with a commercial-quality project to work through as you learn.

Apple Pro Training Series: Getting Started With Motion
It’s not that you didn’t want to create motion graphics for your video or DVD projects: You simply didn’t have the time or money to take on a program like After Effects. Now you don’t need to! With Apple’s $299 Motion and this project-based guide to it, you’ll be animating like a pro in no time! Assuming no prior motion graphics knowledge, this Apple-certified guide (the only one geared to newcomers to the field) starts slow, introducing you to motion graphics aesthetics at the same time you learn the program.