I'd go with the 6.5. 5.5 may not include all the features you have available to you. 6.5 will, but you may have features mentioned in the book that are not in your 6.0 software.

After Effects Book
 

Hey, I'd like to learn to use After Effects.

Anyone have a recommendation for a good book for it?

John,

I'm also teaching myself After Effects. I bought "Classroom In A Book" from Adobe systems. It's a basic book that takes you through most of the features of the program. I don't feel like I've mastered After Effects but it gave me a good general feel for the program. I don't know if that is what you're looking for but it might be worth a look through.

Walter

Thanks. That's one of the books I was looking at on Amazon.

After Effects Apprentice
 

Good, better, best intro training to AE

http://www.amazon.com/After-Effects-...3867613&sr=8-1

After-Effects Apprentice, by Chris and Trish Meyers. Their two previous books, Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects, Vol. 1 & Vol 2 are the standard of the business, in the opinion of many.

Do a little web homework, you'll quickly confirm this for yourself.

I'll definitely 2nd that opinion. Chris and Trish Meyers' books are the best. Over the last few years, I've done hundreds of tutorials and read dozens of books while learning AE from the ground up. Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects are by far the best training material available.

Do you know what the difference between these books and After Effects Apprentice is?

It's not for apprentices...

At the intermediate & advanced level, I also like Creative After Effects

Ae
 

Just started reading about After Effects myself (yesterday). I bought Antony Bolante's book under the Visual Quick Pro series... seems very clean and clear explanations to me. However reading through the replies here, wish I'd looked at the Meyer's books. Always been an impulse buyer though...

Technically it's not a book but the Total Training Videos are also a good resource.