The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book for Digital Photographers [Paperback]

Scott Kelby (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0321492161 | ISBN-13: 978-0321492166 | Publication Date: April 16, 2007 | Edition: 1

This is the eBook version of the printed book.

Free Lightroom 1.1 update available. Simply visit peachpit.com/register to gain instant access.

Scott Kelby, author of the world's #1 bestselling Photoshop book,  The Photoshop Book for Digital Photographers, brings his same award-winning, step-by-step, plain-English style, look and feel to The Lightroom Book for Digital Photographers.

This groundbreaking new book doesn't just show you "which sliders do what" (every Lightroom book does that). This book takes you beyond that to reveal the secrets of the new digital photography workflow, and he does it using three simple, yet brilliant techniques that make this just an incredible learning tool:

#1) Throughout the book Scott shares his own personal settings and studio tested techniques he's developed using Lightroom for his own photography workflow since well before Adobe released even the first Beta version. He knows what really works, what doesn't, and he tells you flat out which tools to use, which to avoid, and why.

#2) The entire book is laid out in a real workflow order with everything step-by-step, so you can jump right in using Lightroom like a pro from the very start and sidestep a lot of productivity killing road blocks and time-wasting frustrations that might have tripped you up along the way.

#3) But what really sets this book apart from the rest, are the last two bonus chapters. This is where Scott visually answers his #1 "most-asked" Lightroom question, which is: "Exactly what order am I supposed to do things in, and where does Photoshop fit in?"

Scott teaches this in a manner we've never seen before in any book, by really showing every step of the entire process, from the initial shoot to the final prints. Both chapters start with an on-location photo shoot, including full details on the equipment, camera settings, and even the lighting techniques. You'll see it all as he takes the photos from each shoot (with you following right along using the very same images) all the way through the entire workflow process, to the final output of the 16x20" prints for the client.  Plus, because he incorporates Adobe Photoshop seamlessly right into this workflow, you'll also learn some of his latest Photoshop techniques for portrait and landscape photography, which takes this book to a whole new level.

It's the first, and only book to bring the whole process together in such a clear, concise, and visual way. Best all, it's taught in Scott's trademark plain-English style that has won him legions of Photoshop fans around the world, and made him the #1 bestselling author of all computer books across all Computing and Internet categories since 2004.

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!

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

About the Author

Scott Kelby is Editor-in-Chief of Photoshop User magazine, President of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals, Executive Editor of the Photoshop Elements Techniques newsletter, and one of the leading seminar instructors in the country today.

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Peachpit Press; 1 edition (April 16, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321492161
• ISBN-13: 978-0321492166
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 8.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (94 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #485,840 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I'm President of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals, Editor and Publisher of Photoshop User magazine, and a book author myself, having penned more than 30 titles.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

123 of 124 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive and/but Breezy, May 16, 2007

By 

Conrad J. Obregon (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book for Digital Photographers (Paperback)

Some folks have suggested that Lightroom is so intuitive that you don't need a book to learn to use it. Maybe my intuition is weak, but the more I read about Lightroom, the more I learn it can do, and the more I begin to like it. Although Scott Kelby's book covers all the basics, from importing digital images into Lightroom to outputting them to prints, websites and slide shows, he also shows how to use a lot of other controls and capabilities that I had not come across elsewhere.

Now I'm often put off by Kelby's breezy style of writing (e.g., "that way, when no one's around, you can ...play slide shows until it's time for your weekly therapy session") but here when he uses it in a book that's meant to be read from start to finish, it helps keep one from getting bored. And this book is meant to be read that way by a new user of Lightroom.

What makes the book even more useful is the step-by-step screen saves. The language for each illustration appears exactly adjacent to the illustration, even if that means leaving a lot of white space in the writing. Moreover, to overcome the problems of the Lightroom interface being harder to read on a printed page than on a monitor, Kelby directs your attention to the right place on the screen with a red circle. This may not seem like graphics enlightenment, but it's not a common technique.

I've said that Kelby goes beyond the intuitive. For example, I never would have guessed that Lightroom could be set up so that you could transmit an image directly into your e-mail from Lightroom, but Kelby shows how.

I've also been puzzled by how to move a photo from my internal disc drive to an external drive for archiving with Lightroom. There's no "Move" in the Edit dropdown menu. Then the author explained that I could create a new folder on the external drive from within the Folders Panel, select the image, and just drag it to the new folder. Presto, the image is moved and Lightroom updates its database to show the new location. It may be, with its excellent keywording and metadata facilities, that Lightroom will become the digital asset management solution for a lot of photographers.

I also appreciated the fact that the author was not afraid to say how inadequate the sharpening facility of Lightroom is. But he didn't stop there. He showed how to easily move a picture into Photoshop from Lightroom, sharpen it and then move it back. It still means purchasing both Lightroom and Photoshop, but at least there is a better way to handle sharpening. Given the advantages of Lightroom over Adobe Bridge and ACR as a front end, serious photographers will certainly consider using both pieces of software.

In the last chapters of the book, Kelby takes two different types of photography, wedding and portrait work, and landscape photography, and follows the workflow through Lightroom and Photoshop to tie everything that came before together in a fitting summary.

There's not much talk about art here, but when it comes to using the technology of Lightroom, this book seems to be as good as it gets.


NOTE: Since this book was published, Adobe came out with a significant update to Lightroom (v1.1). Owners of this book may download a PDF file covering the changes in v1.1 by going to www.scottkelby.com and following the links.

62 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very instructive and clear book on working with Lightroom, April 5, 2007

By 

calvinnme - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book for Digital Photographers (Paperback)

This book is about "Lightroom", which is a workflow tool aimed at digital photographers that don't want to take the time to become familiar with the mammoth application that Adobe Photoshop has become because it really isn't necessary for the scope of their work. The book gives you step-by-step directions on the detailed tasks of:
1. Importing your photos into Photoshop Lightroom
2. Sorting and organizing your photos using the Library Module
3. Making minor adjustments to photos using the Library Module's Quick Develop panel
4. Performing major adjustments by editing in the Develop Module
5. Fixing common problems such as red eye, noise, chromatic aberrations, etc.
6. Changing color photos to black-and-white using several different methods
7. Sharing your photos via the Slideshow Module including adding music and choosing playback options
8. Using the Print Module to print your photos in a variety of ways such as adding text, setting up color management, and printing multiple photos on one page.
9. Using the Web Module to create a gallery for your photos viewable via the web.

There are two final chapters that act as capstones. The first of these final chapters takes you through the steps you have learned in this book to produce a wedding portrait workflow whose ultimate goal is to have photos that the clients can proof on the web. The second of these two chapters has a workflow that is specifically for outdoor photographers. All through the book the author leads you through his formula for working through each problem. His method doesn't allow you to go off and take several paths. By working through the author's method of doing things, he hopes you will walk away with a clear idea of how to use Lightroom his way and use that as a jumping-off point for your own investigation of the tool. The photos that the author works with are downloadable so that you can follow along with him using exactly the same photos as he does.

Overall, I really liked the author's approach and I thought it was quite clear with plenty of screenshots so that the reader does not get lost. The only thing I did not like about the book is that it has a jokey style that is done to the extreme in places. In particular, the first part of the book has a largely bogus Q&A session that does answer some serious questions but also wastes some serious space just joking around. Likewise, the first page of just about every chapter has a conversational "surfer dude"/Andre Lamothe verbal style before the author gets down to business. However, if you can overlook this, the book is very good at teaching the reader how to work with Lightroom.

34 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wanna learn Lightroom? Buy it! Don't like Scott's humor? Buy it anyway., May 16, 2007

By 

Bob Fields "Bob Fields-Photographer" (San Antonio, Texas United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book for Digital Photographers (Paperback)

Whenever I see the reviews that talk about how they don't like Scott's humor, I immediately disregard them. Geez, Louise, lighten up! Learning a new piece of software like Lightroom doesn't have to be droll, pedantic and boring. Whatever. Scott knows his stuff. And he's a funny writer. You don't like funny, too bad. Buy another book. You want to learn Lightroom? Buy this book. You WILL learn Lightroom. He makes his point that to get the most out of the book you should read it from start to finish. The PC users won't have a problem doing it, but it is difficult for us Mac users, but it works. I learned a lot about the intricacies of Lightroom. Scott never ceases to astound and amaze with all his little tidbits of knowledge on "how to" or "isn't that cool!" Just learning how to get rid of a Metadata template I screwed up was almost worth the price of the book! I was about to unload on Adobe for not making it easy. It is easy...tricky and not real intuitive, but easy, thanks to Scott. That's just one small example of how helpful this book is. And he really brings it all together in the last two chapters. I read it all. I even read the chapter on wedding photography, and I absolutely detest anything about wedding photography, but I still learned a lot. It's a good book. Worth the money. I work faster, and smarter now, and have more time with my camera rather than "fiddlin" with Photoshop. I still use Photoshop a lot, but getting organized, selecting, evaluating, correcting and printing is much faster. Thank you Adobe. Thank you, Scott.