Microsoft Expression Studio 2 Upgrade From:Microsoft , Microsoft Software ,
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See larger picture. | | Amazon Sales Rank:# 1085 User Rating: Customer Reviews List Price:$349.99 Amazon.com's Price:$335.99 Prices subject to change. You Save:$14.00 (4.00%) Availability:Usually ships in 24 hours |
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Binding: CD-ROM
Brand: Microsoft
EAN: 0882224660310
Format: CD-ROM
Height: 1968 hundredths-inches
Length: 1968 hundredths-inches
Weight: 54 hundredths-pounds
Width: 1968 hundredths-inches
Label: Microsoft Software
Manufacturer: Microsoft Software
Model: 45887G
Packaged Height: 150 hundredths-inches
Packaged Length: 750 hundredths-inches
Packaged Weight: 90 hundredths-pounds
Packaged Width: 520 hundredths-inches
Platform: Windows Vista
Platform: Windows XP
Platform: Mac OS X
Publisher: Microsoft Software
Release Date: 2008-05-26
Studio: Microsoft Software
Feature:
- Expression Design 2 lets you create assets and use them with Expression Blend 2 to design user interaction for a new wave of expressive Windows applications
- Adhere to today's Web standards using built-in support for XHTML, CSS, XML, and XSLT; design sites that work on any browser
- Use Expression Media Encoder 2 to enhance and publish rich video experiences for both Windows and Mac
- With support for more than 100 media formats, Expression Media makes managing your digital universe a snap
- Expression Studio 2 brings design and development together--design elements like video, 3D models, and vector art are combined with full support for the latest Microsoft development tools and platforms
Product Description:
Microsoft Expression Acrylic Graphic Designer brings together the best of vector- and pixel-based capabilities, letting you explore new creative and cutting edge possibilities. Produce a variety of graphic visual effects using innovative styles and graphic properties such as textures, fringes, and dimensionality. Add blurs, drop shadows, color corrections, and other image effects and filters using nondestructive, editable Live Effects. Bring together the best of vector-based and pixel-based design with a flexible hybrid graphics environment. Incorporate graphics from other applications, and export design elements to a variety of software tools and formats including the Windows Presentation Foundation (formerly code named "Avalon"). Achieve professional results with a varied collection of highly customizable vector and pixel tools which provide powerful creative options for drawing, painting, and editing both new and existing content.
Customer Reviews:
10 of 10 customers found the following review helpful:
Quite a package, 2008-06-20
Version 2 of this suite of programs seems to have smoothed out some rough edges from the first release, as you'd expect.
Blend 2 has helpful verbose tooltips on the various properties you can set in the Properties Panel.
Blend 2 offers Silverlight 1 layout and design, but people who buy Blend 2 or Expression Studio 2 will get Blend 2.5 for free. Blend 2.5 will be able to create Silverlight 2 applications. You can download the Blend 2.5 Preview for free. It can run on the same computer as Blend 2.
Expression Web 2 is a solid HTML/CSS Web design program. If you edit HTML or web pages, it's as good as any program out there.
Expression Design 2 is a capable drawing program similar to Adobe Illustrator but without as many filters and effects and layer blending modes. Its main advantage is its native file format is XAML so anything you create can be exported for WPF or Silverlight. I've had good luck opening Adobe Illustrator files with it, then exporting them as XAML.
Expression Encoder 2 is supposed to be faster than version 1 and produce better results, according to the training videos on the DVD. The presenter really seems to know video production and the free training videos have whetted my appetite for the full training series.
That brings me to the first extra -- there are hours of free training videos from Total Training on the DVD. They'll give you a quick start on each program. It's a lot easier to watch someone demonstrate something in a video than to read step-by-step procedures in a manual.
The Expression Web training gives a quick tour of the program and new features in version 2. The Expression Blend videos cover a lot of info about how Blend creates WPF content. In fact, the trainer said that basically Blend is a XAML editor. If you are a design person, you'll learn much about the terminology and functionality of WPF. If you're a developer, you'll learn to visualize the XAML code you're familiar with.
The second valuable extra is that Expression Studio includes a free version of Visual Studio 2008 Standard Edition. If you don't have Visual Studio 2008, that alone is worth about $200.
If you are a developer interested in learning to develop new WPF and Silverlight applications, this is a full-featured toolkit. If you're a designer interested in developing rich Internet content, this is a cohesive set of design tools.
And if you are a developer with an interest in design or a designer who can dip into code, there's a lot of power available to you in Expression Studio 2.
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