Customer Reviews

Lightroom 3: Streamlining Your Digital Photography Process

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have been using Adobe Lightroom for a little over a year and while I am deeply impressed with it (I recommend it highly) I always felt that I simply didn't have a clue about how to use it properly.

Adobe has tonnes of excellent on-line help material for Lightroom including hours of video tutorials. The company runs a helpful forum for users and those users themselves have set up a vast array of websites and blogs dealing with the program. Full marks to all of them and thumbs up to Adobe for creating the best imaging program I have ever used.

But I could never get a handle on how I should be approaching the "workflow" or method of working with my photos in Lightroom.

For me Lightroom is not just some place to play around with pictures; it's more like a giant mansion filled with rooms crammed with mysterious machines, secret passages, and stuff that looks a bit like magic. I was always more than half lost in the Lightroom mansion whenever I processed photographs.

Until Nat Coalson's book that is.

I am about a third of the way through it and if I stopped reading it now I would still consider what I have learned as worth the price of the book. Indeed, as the headline to this review says, I would have been happy to have paid twice as much for just the little I've got out of it already.

Mr Coalson writes the way I think he must deliver his training programs. There is a strong sense of one-on-one teaching in his writing and it pays off in ways that everything else I've read concerning Lightroom failed at.

One of the problems with Lightroom, for me, has always been the bewildering series of options, features and menu selections. I never really knew what half of them did and of the other half I hadn't a clue about which choices to make. Those choices are all explained nicely in the book, not in the sense of what they do, but what they can mean for your work, for your images. And if you still aren't clear on what option to choose he usually finishes off the section by telling you what his personal choice is which at least gives you a very well informed place to start.

The section of the book I have completed deals essentially with how to get your images into Lightroom in an organized way, how to sort them, judge them, and get everything lined up before diving into the actual processing. This is a critical phase of what Adobe calls the "workflow". While there is no one way to go about the workflow the ways I was using were wasteful and utterly draining of my time and energy.

Reading about workflow in Lightroom always used to make me feel like someone was painting varnish over the surface of my brain. I just couldn't get the concepts, the details were byzantine, and it just all seemed way too bureaucratic and anal.

Now I don't even think about the process. It is all transparent and effortless.

I set up the program and my picture files the way he recommended. I found the options and features I liked. And I started to get-stuff-done -- quickly.

It used to take me an hour or more just to get a hundred or so shots sorted and evaluated, ready for full scale image processing. But now I can zap through a hundred shots in a handful of minutes.

I am really looking forward to the next two thirds of this book.


Rick Grant
Calgary

Having spent the last few years working closely with Lightroom users on various web forums, and writing three Lightroom books (Adobe Lightroom - The Missing FAQ series) myself in that time, I'm well aware of the information new users need when they're getting started.

In Lightroom 3: Streamlining Your Digital Photography Process, Nat has achieved an excellent balance between being simple enough for new users without being condescending, but also providing enough detail without overwhelming the reader.

When any of my readers need a step-by-step introduction to Lightroom, this is always the book I recommend.

I met Nat Coalson at the Moab Photo symposium where he gave a very impressive talk about Lightroom. I also attended his Lightroom workshop both of which, of course covered lightroom 2. After hearing his talks I really looked forward to his Lightroom 3 book. I have gotten through the first half of the book and as a lightroom user from the get go I have been amazed at what I didn't know! Nat has many specific recommendations for making your workflow more efficient that have been very helpful to me.
Nat presents things in a logical and easy to follow manner and suggests that the book be read and or referenced while you are at the computer working with Ligtroom 3. You can either read it from front to back or use the extensive index to look up specific problem areas. I am doing both.
My only complaint is that some of the screen shots seem small.
For me the book is a very valuable tool and I recommend it highly.

I have been using Lightroom since it came out, therefore felt I was pretty proficient in its use. I was amazed about the amount I learned alone in the Library module. I appreciated Nat's attention to detail and the fact that he explained what each term meant. It opened up new, faster and more effective possibilities. His information in the other modules filled holes I had in my workflow, again saving time or gaining a better understanding of what is going on. I am not afraid of trying out what a slider does, but that does not necessarily mean I understand it.
Over time, I have developed my workflow in Lightroom. Yet there was always the question could I do it differently and, therefore more effectively. It was very helpful to have Nat describe his workflow and have that as a comparison. I will try out some of his ideas.
Personally, I prefer to look something up in a book over having to read it on the screen. Using the well organized index makes it a lot faster for me than searching for the right information in the vast amount of online help.
This is a book, I would strongly recommend to anyone who wants to learn Lightroom because of its methodical approach, great layout and clear language . I would also recommend it to those who "know" Lightroom. I am certain they can find a wealth of information about more effective uses of tools and shortcuts.

I've been using Adobe Lightroom since it's inception and with each version I've searched the internet for information and purchased books to try and speed the learning process. I've bought at least a half dozen books on the subject and while they've all been pretty good Nat Coalson's "Lightroom 3, Streamlining Your Digital Photography Process" is undoubtedly the best reference manual I own. Nat does an excellent job of explaining how to configure the software so that everyone (even a non-computer geek like me) can understand. He then goes through each module of Lightroom and gives detailed step-by-step information on how it works and how to get from point A to point B. Along the way he even offers a suggested workflow along with an explanation of why to work in that manner. After reading this book I have a much better understanding of Lightroom than I've ever had and my photos are looking better than ever. I took Nat's advice and took my copy to Staples and had it spiral bound as I know I'll be using it for reference for some time to come. Whether you're new to Lightroom and looking to learn the program from the ground up or have a working knowledge and are looking to take your skills to a higher level Nat Coalson's Lightroom 3 may very well be the reference you've been looking for.

For someone with instructional book ADD, this book has been more then helpful. I like to torture myself trying to figure out software on my own with various level of success. With this book I was able to find the answers that were nagging at me throughout my learning process. Also it helped me stay focused on getting through the chapters that didn't seem to interest me at first but I was able to gain a lot of insight in the process. And all of a sudden my ADD disappeared and I was able to follow the book in the order it was intended, pretty rare in the books I've tried before.

I been using Lightroom since LR-1 I have a collection of books and videos on this software. This IS THE BOOK to buy if you want to learn LR-3 the right way. It is worth every penny and more. I give it 5 stars for there are not ten stars rating. I learned more with this book than with any other book on the subject. Thank you Nat Coalson and keep up the good work.

BTW another excellent, excellent book on the subject is Lightroom 3 the missing FAQ by Victoria Bampton the Lightroom Queen.
These two books is all you need to learn LR-3.
Don

Whether you are new to Lightroom, or just upgrading to Lightroom 3, this is a fantastic book. The step-by-step, clear, and easy to read instructions walk you through Lightroom's features and most importantly, help you build your own digital workflow to get the best from your images.

I've been using Lightroom since the version 1 beta, but I've learned a ton of valuable insights from this book and Nat's previous book on Lightroom 2. I've read it cover to cover. And although I own other Lightroom books, this is the one I pull off the shelf when I need help doing something. You can't go wrong purchasing this Lightroom book.

I'm not new to Lightroom, used 2 extensively (for an amatuer), but still gleaned some great info out of this book. I own several books on the subject, but this one is thr one I tend to gravitate more to when I have a question. One of the areas that I got the most out of was in the first part of the book where he talked about getting your workflow in order and creating a meaniningful naming convention. I've alway let lightroom organize everything for me and mainly spent my time in the develop module. But, with photography creeping out of the hobby phase and into addiction my system has quickly become chaotic. I found myself using the author's templates and starting my catalog over and creating something that can grow and enable the addiction. Also, never used collections very much but since incorporating alot of the ideas in the book, find them to be a key element to my workflow now. Still going through some of the more advanced development settings, but have read enough to know this book deserves 5 stars and is worth of a spot on resource shelf.

I am really new to using lightroom and have been looking for a good deskside resource to help me in the process of learning this software.

What I like about Nat Coalson's book is how clear and easy it is to follow. It provides clear and human readable examples in color photographs.

I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn lighthroom from the ground up.