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The Photoshop Lightroom Workbook: Workflow not Workslow in Lightroom 2

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In an interview with George Jardine, renowned portrait photographer Gregory Heisler remarked, "the problem with digital photography is that people don't know what they don't know." It's still a relatively new field, and alot of misinformation gets passed along despite people's best intentions. When Heisler wanted to get a handle on digital, he went to a D-65 workshop with Seth Resnick & Jamie Spritzer (in fact, Canon sends many of their Explorers of Light to learn digital at D-65).

With this book, a wider audience is able to learn the ins-and-outs of digital photography from pioneers in the field. What makes Resnick & Spritzer's book unique among the competition is that is is built around establishing a true end-to-end digital workflow, from capture to asset management to output and archiving. Whether you're a working professional or an ardent shutterbug, this book shows you effective organizational and artistic techniques. The blessing and curse of digital is the sheer volume of files one can generate; this book shows the path to get the most of of one's time in front of the computer, freeing the photographer to spend more time shooting.

Behind everything is a solid understanding of state-of-the-art digital technology, with clear and concise explanations why one should do things a certain way over another. In addition, multiple approaches are illustrated to address the different needs of different photographers; for example, the book shows how to set up the Library and Catalog features for managing external drives in a shared environment or laptops that might be synced with desktops.

Thankfully, this book is not one of those encyclopedias that tries to explain every feature in Lightroom in exhaustive detail. While there's more than enough instruction on using the various settings in the Develop Module, proofing for prints, etc., the viewpoint is always from the perspective of a photographer working on files from a shoot, not taking one picture and manipulating it to death with no context (as so many Photoshop books are). For that reason, this book is actually one you can read from beginning to end, as opposed to just pulling off the shelf and using the Index when you have a question (though it's great for that, too). The tone is concise, comprehensible, and professional (thankfully, without the relentless puns and lame jokes that define who-know-who's books).

For all my friends who pick up digital photography and seek my help, I always try to help them develop good work habits and a fundamental understanding of optimizing their files, both during capture and subsequent processing, rather than try to teach them random Photoshop tricks. Resnick & Spritzer's book is truly remarkable in that it is the first I've seen to really teach a workflow in the context of being a photographer, rather than just illustrating Lightroom's feature set. You'll learn all of Lightroom features, but you'll be learning WHY to use them, in addition to HOW (which seems to be the only part most books address). I can't recommend this book highly enough, as I think it's the best place to start understanding digital as a photographer. Even if you've been using Photoshop for years and Lightroom since the Beta version, read this book cover-to-cover and your time behind the computer will be much more productive!

Technology books are tools for learning, and the good ones provide timely, accurate information in a manner that's easy to assimilate. When they're written by giants in the business whose views and opinions have been tested over time they are even more valuable. This is one of those books.

Digital photography has been like a tsunami that started relatively small and just kept on growing. As hardware and software tools have grown inexorably in number and complexity, there's been a crying need for a polished, proven, up-to-the-minute set of methodologies to deal with growing collections of image files, especially for professional photographers for whom time is money and whose reputations depend on quality and consistency. Many have tried to provide this framework as consultants and trainers, but only a few have risen to the top, including the company D-65, founded by Seth Resnick and Jamie Spritzer, co-authors of this book.

Let's be clear; there are many ways to capture, edit, publish, and store digital images, but only a few end-to-end workflows make the highest and best use of all the tools available to achieve both efficiency and effectiveness. And of course with never-ending technology improvements and software upgrades it's a continually moving target, but in my view, this book -- which is essentially the D-65 workshop in handbook form -- is one of the best compilations yet.

In this discussion of workflow, the authors present Lightroom as the core component to move digital captures into the desktop darkroom and manage them from development through delivery and archiving. However, they stress that Lightroom is still best augmented with Adobe Photoshop and Bridge for a small number of specialized operations, and that integration between all these programs is now relatively seamless. As the core tool, Lightroom has significantly matured; its innovative non-destructive processing now includes considerable selective adjustment capability, and the digital asset management part of the program (metadata, cataloging, and search functions) is much more capable. On a special technical note, sharpening in the current version of Lightroom 2 -- at both the capture and output stages -- has been significantly upgraded using algorithms developed by the world-renowned PixelGenius team, of which Seth Resnick is an original partner.

Software books often concentrate on describing what program features do without showing how those features integrate and interact across the entire system. Here the authors go to great lengths to put features in context and offer best-practice suggestions that cover the full hardware/software workflow gamut. This is exactly the kind of information that is of greatest value to photographers at all levels.

While no one is going to become a Lightroom expert overnight, this book does a highly credible job of illuminating this very popular and rapidly maturing program and demonstrating how it can be used as the main engine of an effective and efficient digital imaging workflow. It belongs on every serious Lightroom user's shelf as both a trusted learning tool and ready reference.

I read this book from start to finish and I am a little disappointed. First off let me tell you the good things about it. The author explains thoroghly what Adobe Lightroom is, it's a database and it's "not" an editting tool to replace PhotoShop, it works well with PhotoShop though. The book seems to be a perfect fit for a professional photographer with his/her own studio, plently of projects and time to spend in front of a computer setting up a process flow for his/her work. However, I am not a professional photographer, just an amateur that thinks that Lightroom would be a good solution for keeping track of my growing digital photos. And, I don't believe this book answered that question for me. I will probably buy another Lightroom book before I start the process of setting up Lightroom or just forget Lightroom and try to find another product that suits what I am looking for. I do love the database concept behind Lightroom and I don't know of any other software that uses that concept. But, maybe Lightroom is a little overkill for someone who is looking to categorize and tag his legacy photos, set up a process flow and be able to create albums/slide shows in a hurry with a keyword search. Before I start, I want to be certain that I have the right product, because I have 1,000's of photos that need to be categorized & tagged.

Another complaint I had with the book is that the author would mention something that seemed to me should be explained further, but the author assumed that the reader knew what he was referring. The biggest example was the reference to "D-65", maybe I just haven't been around digital photography enough, but I didn't know what they were referring to, I looked through all the pages that I had read and it was never explained. Finally, on the back cover it explained that it was the authors training and consultancy company, seemed to me especially since it was referenced thoughout the book, that this explanation should have been in the text of the book.

I like this book. Pick it up reading and cannot put it down. The workflow it suggested is through real experiences and well thought out.

I have thought through my own workflow a while back. But there are a few issues that are not totally to my satisfaction. And the suggestions from this book helped me resovled many of them.

I also like a lot about the parts about the Lightroom Develop Module. For example, it explains what clarity/vibrance/saturation is. It also shows how to use Ligtroom HSL adjustments to localize hue/saturation/... in the images. These are something I used to think only Nikon NX2 can do. Now Lightroom 2.5 can do it too (though as not a elegant as Nikon NX2.)

Many times, the authors also explain why they made the decision and with examples. For example, why use 16 bit vesus 8 bit. These persuaded me to change my workflow to use 16 bit now.

There are still many more goodies to pick up as I only finished reading the develop related chapters.

This books shows you how powerful and useful Adobe Lightroom 2.x is. And I'd highly recommend to anyone who want to improve their workflow.

Eric

Of all the Lightroom books I have,this is the most used,real world information,easy to read & understand.I have recomended it to all my contacts who use Lightroom

Lightroom is the most significant and useful piece of software for photographers since Photoshop, but it's "help" is rudimentary at best (IMHO). In "Workflow not Workslow in Lightroom 2" photographers Seth Resnick & Jamie Spritzer use their excellent teaching skills to take us through their legendary D-65 workflow showing us the ins and outs of Lightroom 2 in the process. The workbook is easy to follow and explains the why as well as the how without bogging down. With their specific instructions, clear examples, and well thought out guidelines, Seth & Jamie will have you up and running with your own fully functioning workflow in place by the end of the book if not sooner. This is the one reference book that lives next to my monitor. Wether you're just starting out or have been shooting for years, if you want to use Lightroom, this book will make your life a great deal easier. Thank you Seth and Jamie for a job well done!

I've bought gillions of photoshop-related books over that years and they just sit on the shelf. Not with this book. Lightroom really is an answered prayer for photographers and this book shows you why -- in simple, direct and interesting terms. They've nailed it with user-friendly index, table of contents and logical instructions. Buy it! You won't be sorry.

You can use this book to build a step by step workflow, then you can keep it as your guide, for the times when you forget something. Its full colored pictures lets easy to undertand what are write (some others books try explain you color management or the lose of colors in some color space with PB images).

PS - sorry my english and any mistake, I'm still learning.

I NEVER review my purchases, but this text was simply spectacular. It was simple enough for someone who had not used this software program much, but allowed me to understand what was essential and replicate the work of experienced professionals. At the end of each chapter there are examples of the important questions and answers of material contained in that section which allows the reader to review the critical points again. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn to use LR like a pro.

This book is well written, easy to follow, and sits right in front of my monitor for easy access. It seamlessly navigates through all the complexities of Lightroom and breaks them down in easy to digest sections. Until you can take the 4 day seminar offered by Seth Resnick & Jamie Spritzer, this is the next best help to your Digital Workflow!