Customer Reviews

Lightroom 2: Streamlining your Digital Photography Process

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I was honestly a little leery of purchasing another Lightroom 2 book. I had a few kicking around the house already and I doubted there was anything left to learn that I couldn't find for free online.

I was wrong.

If you're in the market for a single Lightroom 2 book - buy this one. For those of you who have followed Lightroom from the beginning there are great tips and shortcuts to be found. For those of you who are new to the Lightroom work flow this is the book for you. "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2: Streamlining your digital photography process" will help unlock all of Lightroom's potential.

Ok, I know that sounded a bit like a commercial. It isn't. I was just pleasantly surprised to be learning new tips and shortcuts that I will use and that will save me time.

So what sets this book apart from the others?

It's simple really - Mr. Coalson sticks to one thing and one thing only; moving images through the Lightroom pipeline. He's not trying to make you a better photographer, he just wants you to take care of your images, manage them and then reach your end goals. He wants you to be a more organized photographer.

This is a great book! Its a pleasing read front-to-back and clearly laid out with intuitive, eye-catching graphics for shortcuts, tips, reminders, etc. This makes later reference a snap.

I was quite familiar with Lightroom before purchasing, but I'm picking up new tips, tricks and techniques at the turn of every page. I've learned how to better integrate my old catalog of digitized 35mm and 4x5 transparencies with the thousands of newer DSLR images. I've also learned a bunch of processing tips to get the best out of my images. My catalog and digital workflow have both become more organized and efficient.

I highly recommended this book for anyone starting out with, or interested in truly get the best out of Lightroom!

When I got my Nikon DLSR I found myself with a big problem, how to manage all of these pictures and how to pick the best ones for processing. My existing work flow was amateur at best! This book completely changed how I process all of my digital photos. With easy to follow step by step instructions anybody can have a professional workflow after reading this book.

Unlike many other technical books I have read which just give you the how-to on things. Nathaniel Coalson takes you through how he as a photographer uses this software and what he has found is the most efficient. You can quickly tell that he is a true master with it and the simple tips and instructions you can be too.

There are many different types of books for an application like Lightroom because there are so many different kinds of audiences out there with different needs and desires. So first off, and perhaps most importantly, I'll try to state what I think the target audience is and the author's apparent goals are.

Essentially this book outlines how to use and integrate Lightroom into your workflow from image capture in the camera all they way to output to a print or a web page. It accomplishes this fairly encompassing goal by assuming the reader has some basic photographic and computer knowledge as well as the initiative to play, poke and prod on their own once the logical path forward has been illustrated.

The book assumes you know how to find a file on your computer and open it. It assumes that you know how to click dialog buttons and open and close windows. It assumes you know what shutter speed, aperture and exposure compensation are. It assumes you know how to plug in your printer and load its drivers. Basically, it assumes you are proficient enough that you could probably get Lightroom installed, some images into it and do some limited developing and printing by yourself. Really, no one needs to write a book on that, a couple web pages or free video tutorials will get you there if you need a helping hand.

Instead the book primarily focuses on the how and why of the features included in Lightroom. Why the features are there at all and how you can best use them to manage, develop and print your images. Which features are the big time savers and how using them in a particular way is even more efficient. In this exploration it also addresses certain issues that are not a direct part of the software but are nonetheless part of integrating the software into a work flow. Asides into the proper exposure of a RAW file and file naming choices for easier Digital Asset Management are good examples - nothing about Lightroom the software strictly relates to these topics and yet they are an integral part of getting the best out of a work flow that encompasses Lightroom as its central core.

Definitely use the look inside feature to examine the contents, it will give you a good flavor for the breadth of the book.

Some specific points:

- The coverage of the develop module is excellent in the sense that it shows how every part is used, recommends on order of operations, and gives the basics of what the controls do. As with all the other parts of the book it has great information on time-saving shortcuts in this module. What it lacks, and I didn't really expect it to cover, is in depth technical nitty-gritty on the controls and some of their subtleties. If you are interested in such things I can suggest the middle chapters of the Fraser/Schewe book on ACR (which has the same controls as Lightroom). Again, this book covers the whole Lightroom work flow and thus doesn't go into hyper-detail of every part.

- The little shortcuts sprinkled through the text are huge time savers. You'll definitely want this book at your side when first using Lightroom until you end up learning the shortcuts best suited to your work flow. When reading the book the formating of these shortcuts (different fonts and colors) seems distracting but it does make it very easy to use as a desk side reference.

- My one area of criticism is that there should really be an extra page or two on keywording. Keywords are one of the most important aspects of DAM and in my opinion Lightroom has one of the most usable and useful implementations of keywords. The author does in fact cover the topic, but there are some subtleties to how the keyword hierarchy plays out in searches and exports and really some more text should have been dedicated to this very critical subject. This is a bit strange because the author clearly understands the central points and practices of DAM and advocates for keywording strongly but doesn't seem to follow up with as much depth as the topic deserves - really just an extra page or two would have made a big improvement.

As a final summary, remember this is not a Scott Kelby hold your hand and show every dialog box kind of book. It isn't a Martin Evening here is every single freaking feature reference kind of book either. If you can successfully get Lightroom started and poke at a few features but are then left with the feeling of "well this is pretty cool, but just what the heck do I do with it to make my life easier" then this is the book for you. A software package like Lightroom offers so many features and the flexibility to use them in so many ways that the possibilities are overwhelming. The time it takes to experiment with different work flows is enormous and the consequences of various choices often don't play out until very far in the future when much time has been invested and potentially wasted. What makes this book a gem is that it narrows the paths to those most productive and useful to a broad range of photographers.

I don't read a lot of them, but this may very well be the best technical reference I've ever read. Prerequisites for getting the most of this book are a solid relationship with your camera, and at least a fundamental understanding of Adobe's Lightroom 2 software. If you have those, it's written such that any digital photographer looking to better manage their photos will learn valuable and immediately applicable information in an easy-to-follow format.

The book doesn't get into the nitty gritty of processing photos in Lightroom (nor does it promise to), but it does lay out effective strategies for defining a photo management workflow from shutter release to final export, particularly for organizing your files on disk. This is something I have been struggling with for a while, and I feel that Coalson's advice and examples have given me a solid toolkit to work from. I'll read Kelby's Lightroom book next for more detail on processing techniques, but I feel Coalson's book delivered exactly what it promises.

Lightroom 2: Streamlining your Digital Photography Process I have 3 Lightroom books, none that I have been very satisfied with. "Lightroom 2 book" by Nathaniel Coalson is by far the very best! Save yourself alot of money and get this book! It is well written and it just flows well. For newer photographers you will learn a lot about photography.... I cant put this book down! It covers so many topics and insights to Lightroom and photography that have helped me out in many ways.....and I am a semi-pro photographer! If your using Lightroom 2, "Get this book"!

I've read several instructional books for programs such as Photoshop and other programs. I've found this book to be one of the best formats for learning and retaining the information I've come across. Since I started using Lightroom for my workflow, this book has provided a great deal of information along with tips and suggestions for efficient and effective processing of images. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone wishing to learn Lightroom.

This book IS photo management at it's best! I have been serious about photography for a little over 1 year and I kept changing the way I managed and streamlined my workflow and still never seemed to be effective at it. I decided to purchase Lightroom on a friend's suggestion and found it very helpful, but still found myself overwhelmed with too many files and started falling behind in my processing.

Nat's book has been so valuable in changing this for me. His workflow suggestions, processing and tips in this book are fantastic and very easy to follow. I would recommend this book to anyone wanting a great way to manage their workflow and streamline their process!

I have attempted to learn Lightroom from several books before this one and I still had program operations that I didn't feel comfortable doing afterward. I must say that Nat Coalson not only clearly gives you the nuts and bolts of working with Lightroom but he also explains simply and concisely some of the finer aspects of workflow operation and image refinement. This is one of those books that you will read and then keep close by for future reference.

I shoot professionally and spend quite a bit of time each day working on images in Lightroom. I try to stay up-to-date on all things Lightroom through forums, videos, websites, etc. Although much of the material was review for me, I found lots of really helpful little techniques and approaches that made the book a very worthwhile purchase. His personal notes are what I found to be the most helpful as he intersperses the main material with little hints and tricks to improve the work flow. There is a lot of great material in this book that will take some time to master. I'm going to take my copy to an office store and have it ring-bound so that I can refer to it on a regular basis. I highly recommend it for those who want to squeeze as much as they can out of Lightroom.