Explanations for what is happening 'under the hood' of a lot of compositing tools are explained, as well as how to achieve them manually. Stuff like keying, despill, unsharp mask, and defocus operations. I've read the 2 other main compositing textbooks available on Amazon.com, I would say this is definitely better than "Digital Compositing In Depth", and slightly better than "The Art & Science of Digital Compositing". It's definitely the most detailed and technical of the 3 books.
I wouldn't recommend this for a beginner, it'd be more suited to someone who has composited for a few years and wants to better understand the underlying concepts of their compositing software.
Ron Lindeboomcreativecow.net