Customer Reviews

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Workflow: The Digital Photographer's Guide (Tim Grey Guides)

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Lightroom is here and the blizzard of Lightroom books is upon us.

Lightroom is Adobe's new software for digital photographers which offers a built-from-the ground-up approach to enable photographers to turn their images into prints, slide shows or web graphics. While the program itself is not without flaws, the interface is much more intuitive then Photoshop, and allows somewhat faster handling of files.

Grey's book takes the reader through all of the steps a photographer would use from importing his or her pictures from a camera into a computer to printing the pictures or creating a website using Lightroom.

He describes what each of the buttons and functions provided by the software does, in the order that the average photographer would use them. His writing is concise and what he describes is for the most part clear. A photographer who picks up this book and follows it while processing pictures will have little trouble creating satisfactory output. The book certainly makes using the software more clear than the rather thin instruction manual that comes with Lightroom.

On the other hand, nothing that Grey tells you will help you create a great photograph. The book is aimed purely at the technique that it is necessary to use to create output, and little about the art. One of the great things about image processing software is that it can allow you to create not just images but art; to convert zeros and ones into the photographer's vision. You won't find that here, but maybe that's asking too much of this work.

I can complain about some of the shortfalls of the description of technique. For example, one of the great advantages of Lightroom is that it is a powerful asset management tool (although not as good as some standalone products). It has a well designed scheme for creating keywords that allows for easy recovery of images that I hope Adobe will eventually incorporate into the Bridge portion of Photoshop. It includes so-called parent-child relationships. But this powerful tool is hardly described. Similarly, Grey points out that the software allows for the creation of either HTML or Flash web galleries. I would have liked to know the advantages and disadvantages of each.

The Lightroom interface uses a combination of light grey and dark grey on many of its menus. That works on a monitor but the printed screen captures of the interface are often almost impossible to distinguish. While I commend the publisher for getting this book to the public so quickly, in the rush several typos seem to have slipped in.

Many photographers have been hungry for more information on the use of Lightroom. Grey's book is one of the first detailed explanations. It's useful, but hopefully even better volumes will follow.

This rather disappointing 200-page book reads like the manuals of old that used to come in the box. The author methodically describes every step of using Lightroom, going through every preference menu, viewing option, menu bar and so forth. While it's nice to get a comprehensive guide to the program's various nooks and crannies, there's very little real advice about using Lightroom to best effect.

A great example is the export feature. Because Lightroom is a non-destructive editor, as you make adjustments to your photo it's just storing a list of changes to the actual file in its database. Only when you export a picture are the changes combined with the original pixels to create a new file. There are several possible format choices, each with a handful of critical settings, in Lightroom's export feature. This book lists them all with a few half-sentence, off-the-cuff recommendations ("I suggest using JPEG for basic image review and TIFF when the images will need to be Printed"). There's virtually no discussion of the many other settings or the implications of choosing one or another.

Most folks who've been around digital imaging for any length of time know Tim Grey. An engaging, energy-filled, computer whiz who used to teach for George Lepp at the Lepp Institute of Digital Imaging and then got hired by Microsoft to head their professional photo expansion effort, Tim has a rare talent for clear, insightful writing about complex subjects. He's parlayed that skill into a whole series of books, of which this is one of his latest, and it carries on the tradition of being very thorough and easy to read and understand.

The topic of this book is one of a new breed of image editing tools that takes a fundamentally different approach to working with digital photo files from the King Kong of the industry, Adobe Photoshop. While Photoshop still is the industry leader by far, it has several serious drawbacks, including expense, complexity, and a very steep learning curve.

Enter Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. The concept for this new tool is to provide a more user friendly, efficient end-to-end workflow within one program that includes editing, optimizing, cataloguing, and output, allowing the photographer to spend less time in front of the computer and more time actually taking pictures. There are competing programs from other companies with a similar goal - Apple's Aperture (strictly for Macs), and LightZone from Light Crafts (for both platforms), but only Lightroom has near-seamless cross compatibility with Adobe's other creative products.

Lightroom has strong promise. One of its leading attributes is that it works nondestructively. When you make editing changes to images you are not altering actual pixel values within the image file but only adding a set of instructions for changes you wish to make and shows those effects on the fly. This makes files much smaller than when you create multiple variations in Photoshop, many times with many layers resulting in huge files. Many of its tools are both clever and intuitive as well, speeding the way to a polished product in less time.

There are some limitations however. While image adjustments are well mechanized, there is no provision in this version of the program to apply them selectively to parts of the image. For this type of work the file must be exported to another editing program. Also, there is no means for working on more than one monitor. A favorite approach for many who use Photoshop is to use two displays with the image on one and the palettes for various adjustments on the other; can't do that at this point with Lightroom.

Will Lightroom catch on? Very likely, especially for those photographers who yearn for a tool that gives good, quick results that increase their productivity. And when the global adjustments available within Lightroom aren't enough, it's easy to export to another tool for that kind of work. In addition, the simple digital asset management capabilities may be enough for someone whose file storage and cataloguing needs aren't too great. Furthermore, this is version 1.0, and there is every expectation that the program will grow and improve as the new conceptual paradigm gains acceptance, particularly with serious competition from at least two other quadrants.

So, how valuable is Tim Grey's take on the subject? About as good as it gets, I'd say. Tim has a rare talent for clarity of expression that leaves little doubt about what's being described. Throughout his books he makes suggestions about settings and states his personal preferences so someone new to the program has a place to start, which is far preferable, in my view, to just describing all the choices and leaving one hanging without a clue where to begin. If you purchase Lightroom, or are even just considering doing so, you should also acquire this book. It will save hours and hours of figuring it all out on your own and give you a running start toward becoming an expert with one of the best new editing programs.

Tim's effort is a noteworthy in clarity of writing style. Realistic workflow approach and sequencing in this book makes Lightroom's use far more understandable. Tech-writing of technical subject-matter always is a difficult job. Tim does it exceptionally well. Oddly, Tim's book... is the very material that - should - be included within Adobe's $300 product under the "Help" menu. User tips picked up from the book make it a worthwhile purchase. LR itself... the jury is still out on that issue. Noteworthy features, but quirky Raw conversions and exposure values and color balance readings. A product that attempts to be the proverbial "Swiss Army Knife" with the inclusion of many many functions... the number count tends to overload the user, even get in the way.

This is a well written book, however talks less about workflow and more about Lightroom. if you are new to light room I highly recommend this book as it is a great introduction to the product and a walkthrough on all of it's features 1.0 (does not cover 1.1).

If you are looking for workflow and already know lightroom.... this book will teach you a few things you didn't know. I suggest taking a look at your local book store first to see if it is right for you.

I picked up the Lightroom Workflow book as a companion to my copy of Scott Kelby's "Adobe Lightroom for Digital Photographers" book and I found it to be very comprehensive and easy to follow.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking to create a workflow in Lightroom, as it brings out many of the features that are useful but not obvious to the casual user.

There are so many Lightroom books available but I waited for Tim's because of his writing style. He's a technical guy who can also make us "visual" people understand.

I belong to Tim's daily email blog actually a question and answer one which led me to this book. The book is actually fantastic and reveals some of the inner most secrets of Lightroom by Adobe. A must read for those interested in digital photography.

A great book! Easy to read and helps make sense of Adobes new product. Tim Grey is one of the most knowledgeable experts on Lightroom and other
Adobe products for photographers. This bood will be an ongoing source of reference as I work in Lightroom. I would highly recommend it to anyone starting in Lightroom.

Very lacking in information. I like Tim Grey but this was a waste of money.