My preferance would have been a book that imagined you did have the Referance Manual and so went from there. Are you familiar with the Wow! books? They explain things in a way that any bright novice could understand but they <1>reveal how to use tricks developed by expert users rather than being line-by-line "translation" of the Photoshop or Painter manuals.

And as for the manuals that ship with software, I have seen at least a half dozen that actually tackle beginning to use the software and developing workflow, and even creative uses, in a way that Poser manuals (and Revealed) don't remotely aspire to... The model for a reasonble book in my mind would be along the lines of Photoshop, Wow!, The Photoshop Bible, Photoshop Filters, etc.

Clearly it is possible to package with a usefull manual with a product or publish books that assist with creative and workflow aspects of program use.

Sams Teach Yourself Adobe Photoshop 7 in 24 Hours by Carla Rose (Paperback)
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Photoshop 7 for Windows & Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide by Elaine Weinmann, Peter Lourekas (Paperback)
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Photoshop 7 at Your Fingertips: Get In, Get Out, Get Exactly What You Need by Jason Cranford Teague (Paperback)
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Photoshop 7 for Dummies by Barbara Obermeier, Deke McClelland (Paperback)
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Photoshop 7 Savvy with CDROM by Steve Romaniello (Paperback)
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Photoshop(R) 7: The Complete Reference by Laurie Ulrich (Paperback)
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Adobe Photoshop 7 One-Click Wow! by Jack Davis, Linnea Dayton (Paperback)
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The Photoshop 7 Wow! Book by Jack Davis (Paperback)
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Photoshop 7 Complete Course by Jan Kabili (Paperback)
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Photoshop 7 Artistry: Mastering the Digital Image by Barry Haynes, Wendy Crumpler (Paperback)
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The Photoshop Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby (Paperback)
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Total Training for Photoshop 7 Complete CD-ROMs
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Learning Photoshop 7 Bundle
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Photoshop 7 Down & Dirty Tricks by Scott Kelby (Paperback)
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Real World Adobe Photoshop 7 by David Blatner, Bruce Fraser (Paperback)
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This is the first page of an Amazon search. Clearly the user base for Poser would only support 2 or 3 Poser books, but look at the titles. Most of these books I have looked at in depth at my local bookstore and they are excelent. They deal with actually using the program rather than simply being a SR-1 to a poorly written Referance Manual. I feel burned because I accepted the promotion of the book by the software producer as some sort of indication of quality and trusted the advertising copy as remotely accurate.

"Poser 6 Revealed allows you to master concepts on both a technical artistic level." By helping "master" the use of pulldown menues? "Then go in-depth with the objective of your task as you study examples and learn the steps necessary to complete it." e.g. go in depth as we take you through selecting a body part and applying a morph to it. "Coverage of Poser 6 skills, from basic to intermediate." intermediate being someone who has used an application with the default Windows or Mac interface? In reality the book was a hardcopy version of the help windows you find in the Material Room etc.

I just found this in an Amazion review:"I am not sure what is really "Offical"... that sounds just like infomercial hype, as anyone could have gleaned the information in this book for other sources", "Think of it as a marketing brochure on diluted steroids...." The reviewer suggest the book might have value to someone considering the purchase of the software and wishing to see what its basic features are.

"In this case you get a 1 star return on your investment....that would be average, for the money spent. This is the very very least you would expect in this book for $13." I ended up paying around $50 for it with exchange rate and shipping etc. I should not have pre ordered it simply based on the promotion, and the word "Revealed". Its "official" status should have tipped me off but I was imagining it was an attempt by CL to remedy the problems with its documentation. Live and learn.