The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book for Digital Photographers
by Scott Kelby
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Book Summary Information
Author: Scott KelbyBrand: Books
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-09-10
ISBN: 0321555562
Number of pages: 448
Publisher: Peachpit Press
Accessories:
- Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Classroom in a Book
- Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques
- Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2: Visual QuickStart Guide
Book Reviews of The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book for Digital Photographers
Book Review: I am so happy this was my first Lightroom Book
Summary: 5 Stars
This book of goodness is broken down into 14 chapters. Starting with chapter 1 "Getting your photos into Photoshop Lightroom" & ending with chapter 14 "Mr. Kelby's step by step travel photography process" Or is it? Could Mr Kelby have a secret chapter for us about wedding photographers somewhere? Hmmm, guess you'll just have to buy the book to find out. ? At the end of each chapter you will find a page or two of Lightroom Quick Tips. Like, how to fix white balance on the fly when shooting tethered. Or using separate catalogs to make Lightroom faster! Not to mention all the keyboard shortcuts that this book is full of. I will not be going though every chapter. Not that I couldn't mind you, but with 14 plus chapters it would take everyone 2 days to read my review. So I am just gonna go though some of the chapters that gave me a SHAZAM Moment that sent me running to twitter to share what I had discovered with the rest of the world.
The first thing I noticed is that there are a couple of pages before chapter 1 that are a must read. You'll have to read them to find out the rest. (heh, yes I am starting already.)
The next thing I noticed was that the top of the book is laid out like you were inside Lightroom itself. I thought that was a neat effect and very Kelby style until I started flipping though the book and realized that it was more then an effect! It is how the book is laid out too. He has corresponded the chapters with each module in the same order that they are set up in Lightroom! Man, you guys just don't know how much I really appreciated that. It helped me to organize my workflow which helps to break the bad of habits of jumping all over the place, which in turn saves you a lot of time in the end. Thank you Mr. Kelby!!
If you're new to Lightroom, chapter one is where it is at. Ok, so all the chapters in this book is where it is at. However, chapter one is going to help you get your images into Lightroom not only the right way, but the easy way. He will help you with where to store them, how to organize your folder, how to choose preferences for importing them and a lot more.
Chapter two is about organizing your images. Keep in mind that in chapter one he showed us how to organize the folder; here he shows us how to organize our images with in the folder/folders. I don't think the man left anything out of this chapter. It is 33 pages of nothing but organizing make your life easier detail love from Mr. Kelby to us! From viewing your imported photos to relinking missing photos. In this chapter he show us how to "get Lightroom out of the way" I loved pages 43-53. "Sorting your imported photos using collections." Yeah, sorry, that is really all I am gonna say about it.
I can not stress enough how essential this chapter is. Please do not skip it because you want to immediately jump into dodging & burning or something you think is much more fun or you just have to know it now. You're not going to have much fun if 3 months from now or 50 gigs of images later and you can't find what you're looking for! Let Mr. Kelby show you how to set up different catalogs that will suite YOUR needs. A work catalog. A family catalog, a wildlife catalog, & so on. Like Mr Kelby says and I quote. "The advantage is it keeps your database "lean & mean" and running at top speed, rather then having one huge database for every photo you've ever taken." See, see! I just saw several of you sit up & go Shazam! How does he know what my computer hard drive looks like? I am telling you guys, this is a must read chapter!
To me Lightroom is a lot easier to learn then Camera Raw. Don't ask me why. All I know is that it hates me and I believe it to be an evil that was spawned by the devil! But that is neither here or there. To successfully use any software and come away with the results you want and need, one must establish a good foundation of the software they work with. I believe that Mr. Kelby puts us on the right path to creating a good, strong, solid foundation within Lightroom in these first three chapters that will stand us in good stead for many years to come.
What can I say about Chapter 4, 5, & 6? Freaking great? Rocked my world? A lot of OMG's going on? How about all 3 and then some! These 3 chapters were major eye openers for me. I am surrounded by a lot of pro photog and I hear get it right in the camera a lot (which is good advice). I also hear, if you take it into Photoshop or Lightroom it is not consider a "image per say any more" because more or less you have doctored the image with a software program. So at first I was just taking them into Lightroom and doing hardly anything to them. Not even changing the white balance. I would check the exposure to make sure it was blowned out anywhere and then use the recovery slider if it was. Some I might have used the sharping slider a tad. I was trying not to cheat as I thought of it. But shoot fire; do you know how hard it is to shoot a perfect image when you're just starting out? Ha! You can't!
In chapter 4-6 Mr. Kelby made me realize that it is OK if my image aren't perfect. That it is ok to move the sliders over 85% if it is needed! I am aloud to add a deep vignette or just tweak the hue and leave the saturation alone. It is ok to play with ever slider in the Develop module if you want or need to. Gasp! Here I was so worried about messing this them to much that I wasn't doing enough to draw out the real beauty of my images. Is your sky not blue enough but the rest of image is great? Well Mr. Kelby will show you how to take care of this with out effecting anything else in the image. Sweet, right?
I thought page 190 "Reducing Noise" ROCKED! I now know what type of noise goes with the Luminance slider and what noise I need to use the color slider on. Before, I was trying to use both sliders at the same time. There is no need to over work these sliders if you understand what kind of noise you are correcting to begin with. Nuff said!
My all time favorite chapter? Chapter 9 "Gorgeous B&W" Hubba, Hubba! I don't care if you have to use your BBQ Apron, or one of your children's "Daddy's little princess" bib. Just do NOT start this chapter without some kind of protection! Because, this is a drool alert chapter... I love how he shows us how to achieve blacks so deep that the only place it should be legal is on a freshly buffed 57 Chevy! Did you know that not every image will look good as a B&W? Yeah, me either. However, thanks to Mr. Kelby I now know how to check my images to see which ones have promise. Just like in chapter 4-6 he shows us how to add depth and dimension to our B&W images.
I had no idea what duotones were till I got this book. All I can say is thank goodness I hadn't removed my bib yet! We are talking about taking an image and turning it into a piece of art, and it is so easy to do if you let Mr. Kelby show you the way!
Ok guys, I think by now you get the gist of this review and which way I am leaning. I wish I could keep going because there really is so much more to this book then the little bit I have shared with you. So just let me say this. Mr. Kelby doesn't miss a beat with this book. I really can't see anything that he has missed or left me going "but how do you do this?" He even covers plug-ins to auto upload to Flickr! All this time, I've been exporting to Photoshop shrinking the image size & DPI and then uploading to Flickr. Jeesh!
I really don't understand how the man was able to pack so much information in to 400 pages but thankfully for us he did. It is really one of those books that you will have to go though at least twice and maybe even 3 times. Not because you won't understand what you're reading, but because he has jam packed it so full of information that you just won't remember everything from one reading.
You definitely get your money worth with this book. To be honest, the book pays for itself in chapter 2 as far as I am concern. All the chapters after that is just one big bonus that made me a very happy camper! This is another book that will not leave my desk. I reach for it every day and it has to yet leave me hanging.
Summary of The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book for Digital Photographers
Written in concert with Adobe's development of the Photoshop Lightroom 2 Beta, The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book for Digital Photographers - by #1 bestselling computer and technology author, Scott Kelby - is the most complete and concise Lightroom "how-to" book for digital photographers of all skill levels.In The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book for Digital Photographers, Scott walks readers through the basics of Lightroom use, leading them to a brilliantly devised and super efficient digital photography workflow that dramatically improves productivity and allows photographers to spend less time processing photos and more time shooting them.
Throughout the book Scott shares his personal camera and Lightroom settings, as well as the studio-tested techniques he's developed for his own photography workflow. The book is written in his trademark step-by-step, plain English style, and because he knows what really works and what doesn't, he isn't shy to tell you flat out which tools to use, which to avoid, and why. This allows digital photographers of any skill level to jump right in using Lightroom like a pro from the very start, sidestepping a lot of the frustrations that typically haunt those unfamiliar with new applications?especially those as powerful as Lightroom.
What really sets The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book for Digital Photographers apart from other Lightroom books on the market are the last two bonus chapters where Scott answers the questions, "In exactly what order am I supposed to do things in Lightoom," and "Where does Photoshop fit in to the mix?" Both chapters start with an on-location photo shoot, including full details on the equipment, camera settings, and lighting techniques. Readers then witness as he takes the photos from each shoot through the entire workflow process, to the final output of the 16"x20" prints. And, because he incorporates Photoshop seamlessly right into this workflow, you'll learn some of the latest Photoshop techniques for portrait and landscape photography as well.
If you're one of those people who learns best by actually doing the projects yourself; who learns best without all the complicated technical explanations and confusing jargon, and if you really want to start using Lightroom today to unlock the productivity secrets of "The new digital photography workflow,"---there is no faster, more "straight-to-the-point" or more fun way to learn than this groundbreaking new book, and you are absolutely going to love it!
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