Introducing Microsoft Expression Studio: Using Design, Web, Blend, and Media to Create Professional Digital Content

Description

The World WideWeb is continually becoming more complex in sophistication. To get attention and be credible, your site has to have professional-quality graphics. It needs to be usable and give your visitors an interactive and compelling experience. For professional graphic designers and Web site architects, it?s a golden age, because there?s so much work to do and the standards are so high.Those who aren?t artists, programmers, or designers are left wondering how to achieveall of those cool effects: how to make their Web sites user-friendly and eye-catching while maintaining Web standards. Microsoft?s suite of graphics and design tools, collectively called Expression Studio, provides a terrific option for anyone who wants to create high-quality graphics,Web presentations, or user interfaces.This book serves as an introduction to using Expression Studio to create Web sites, graphics, and presentations, and to organize and edit media files. You?ll learn how to use the Expression Studio programs individually, and you?ll also learn how easy it is to export files and projects from one application to another. Each section of the book covers a specific program, so you can read the book from cover to cover to get a complete idea of how the entire suite works together, or just jump to specific topics of interest on the program you want to learn more about. By the end of the book, you?ll be creating interactive sites that utilize Cascading Style Sheets and databases with Expression Web, creating and manipulating images with Expression Design, cataloging and keeping track of your content and creations with Expression Media, and putting it all together with Expression Blend.

CONTENTS:

Chapter 1: Getting Started

Chapter 2: Drawing Paths

Chapter 3: Changing Path Attributes

Chapter 4: Painting Pixels

Chapter 5: Retouching Images

Chapter 6: Working with Text

Chapter 7: Transforming and Warping

Chapter 8: Applying Effects and Filters

Chapter 9: Putting It All Together

Chapter 10: Exporting Image Files

Chapter 11: Preparing your Work for Print

Chapter 12: Preparing your Work for the Web