Sub titled "Catching a Users' Eyes and keeping them on your site" this is a book which takes you on a graphical journey from camera to website and beyond.

The author, Shelley Powers, is obviously very passionate about what she does but she's also got a great writing style and is able to pass her wisdom and experience over to readers of her text. Ms Powers' text is a book about web graphics not about web design but as she mentions the two are inextricably joined at the hip and it's a little hard to speak about one without including the other. So what we have is a book about web graphics which also deals with web design and the tools of the trade for graphic designers, from the lofty heights of Photoshop down to smaller open source utilities.

As the author has been on the Internet for a while now Chapter 1 is a trip down memory lane and even includes a "Web Graphics Hall of Shame". This Chapter brought back a heap of memories for me and made me feel a little nostalgic for all that innocence lost in the concrete jungle of the Web today. I particularly liked the reference to "The Splash Page" and was pleased to read an objective run down of an old favourite of mine ... albeit one that is not search engine friendly and really has no place in today's web.

There aren't many books around that deal with graphics at this level and I found it refreshing ... it was like having access to the author's own personal diary ... as she covered her daily tasks like drawing with circles, ellipses and gradient fills ... and moving on to cubic bezier curves with ease. If you want the theory behind Photoshop then this book has loads of it. Paths as patterns, preserving aspect ratio and transform, to name just a few topics.

Ms Powers says that no one book can address everything in relation to web graphics but I personally found this book had a lot going for it. Aimed at professionals and enthusiasts, this book is a keeper and earns a thumbs up from me.