Adobe Photoshop Lightroom By Scott Kelby

[siew]

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/517dk0qB67L._SS500_.jpg
I just got Adobe Photoshop Lightroom By Scott Kelby for digital photographers from Times Book store in Pavilion, KL today. I was contemplating between Martin Evening's book and this, but finally decided to buy this book as I have limited time to browse them. I chose this book in spite of Scott Kelby's irritating and dry jokes because he takes me directly to what want to do and not beat around the bush with page filling features. I have no idea what to do with Martin Evening's introduction pages and elaboration of each of Lightroom's features although it's informative why Lightroom was created.

This thread is intended as a resource page to use Lightroom more effectively and why you chose Lightroom as part of your workflow. I hope to see more contribution from this community as the moderators have highlighted that we Malaysians do not like to share information. This is a chance for you to prove otherwise.

I was attracted to Lightroom because it offers features not found on Bridge and Photoshop i.e the Cataloging of Files ( I do not know how to find all my tens of thousands of RAW files I have accumulated ever since I purchased my beloved 300D. It is very time consuming going through all my files individually to find a specific file) and the slideshow feature. I have yet to explore the potential of Lightroom but from my initial evaluation, it is an excellent program.

I'll report here my discoveries and why I find them useful.

[StPatrick]

does this book work on photoshop CS3?

[andythology]

Lightroom, bro...

[N.Keong]

My colleague who uses light room, we created a slide show in less than 10mins.
It was for our company trip photos. We compile our photos, go thru them (note, nikon & canon photo files), a press of the button.

we got our slide show ready.

Managed to convince me to convert to light room.

[koel84]

Quite easy for the configuration, but got limitation too

[N.Keong]

Quite easy for the configuration, but got limitation too

I haven't given light room the full test drive.

What are the limitation, that you speak off ?

[mitmivec]

I haven't given light room the full test drive.

What are the limitation, that you speak off ?

lightroom is just for photo adj not so much design to photo editing like removing object u still need to go back to photoshop to do those stuff...

just treat lightroom as a simple and powerful tool for photograher and photoshop for designer and photograher

and also the diff between PS and LR is PS are more pricy(to use pirate in malaysia no diff but oversea there is )

[Mavik]

Btw, I have a copy of this book if anyone is interested in borrowing it.

[noruazumi]

kudos to siew for having the initiative to do some reviews, contribute & sharing. we'll be waiting... :)

[noordin]

I searched for this book at Borders and left disappointed. I'll have to hurry to Times Pavillion then.

Thanks for the tip.

[jackyyong]

I have always used Lightroom since the Beta 4 stage. I have been introduced to LR by a friend. Initially I was skeptical, because I told him off by saying that I do not need any post-processing done on my photos. But after watching the tutorials and the tips online (http://www.lightroomkillertips.com/), I am immediately a believer. Now I use LR as my main workflow, and only fall back to PS whenever I encounter some very tricky situations.

Advantages of LR are:
1. Very easy file management by use of catalogs, collections and stacks.
2. Intuitive photo editing by use of slides and dials. For example, by using only two slides I am able to tweak white balance instead of tweaking the individual RGB channels in PS.
3. Also the Fill Light feature is something which I find very useful for filling up lights in shadowy areas without having to use layer mask in PS!
4. Easy heal and spots removal feature.
5. Straighten a picture, fix lens barreling and vignetting for a specific lens (LR has a large database of lenses), again with the use of very intuitive guides and lines.
6. Full intregration PS, with "Edit in PS" feature where you can edit a picture in LR and go to PS, and vice versa, and both pictures will still be readable in both formats. They are, after all, from Adobe.

I can go on and on. But being the little brother to PS, it has its own limitation too, for example the inability to use layer mask, or skin smoothening, liquify etc. Overall LR has increased my workflow speed and productivity. Go ahead and give it a try!

[noruazumi]

if my observation is right, the sharpening tools really great! i remembered when nivek showed me the sharpening tools that he applied on his bird photos. impressive! we did try a few sharpening methods using PS, but none impressed us as much as LR's sharpening tools.

[Alan]

if my observation is right, the sharpening tools really great! i remembered when nivek showed me the sharpening tools that he applied on his bird photos. impressive! we did try a few sharpening methods using PS, but none impressed us as much as LR's sharpening tools.

I found the exact opposite for LR's sharpening. I can't see any difference before and after applying sharpening! Got to learn how to do it properly!

[Mavik]

For those of you who use Lightroom religiously (like me :P), here is a site which gives plenty of tips. I like this site as it allows me to download some of their presets which might prove to be an extreme time saver.

http://www.lightroomkillertips.com/

[jassed]

Lightroom has been my default photo manager/editor. I like its speedy workflow, and convenient for raw files too (its like a standalone Camera Raw). Oh ya, i thought i saw the book at Borders Times Square a few weeks back.

[siew]

I use Lightroom exclusively to:

(i) catalog all my files;
(ii) develop RAW files (The presets are really great as it saves time);
(iii) create Web galleries (this is really great as Lightroom is able to create a slideshow and upload them to your web on the fly, really neat and seamless).

However, Lightroom is unable to run actions on Photoshop though there is an alternative through creating droplets in PS and importing the droplet into Lightroom but it involves saving JPEG files twice which is not recommended. I ended up using Bridge to process my RAW files.

I was quite disappointed with the Slideshow Module though. You should look elsewhere if you want to create slideshow on a DVD.

Kelby's book is very informative nevertheless and I intend to keep it as a reference.

Please feel free to post questions here and I hope to answer them as best as I can.

[ZulSim]

I bought this book thru Amazon when I was in London. It's a thick book & time consuming, nevertheless, it gives a detailed step-by-step explanation of all the things LR can do. If you don't have the time & need to use LR fast, try the book by John Beardsworth.

[kiankheong]

Lightroom works great on windows, but I know most Apple users prefer Aperture.

[mohamadfazli]

Lightroom works great on windows, but I know most Apple users prefer Aperture.

The only problem with aperture is that ...

It can display alpha channels correctly.. grrr..

But the adjustment are superior from lightroom ;)

[siew]

Lightroom works great on windows, but I know most Apple users prefer Aperture.

Some facts and figures here (http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2007/10/aperture_vs_lightroom.html) but by Adobe though.

[hon910]

I searched for this book at Borders and left disappointed. I'll have to hurry to Times Pavillion then.

Thanks for the tip.

Try MPH (Midvalley), I got this book early this year, find it useful for me as I have just started using Lightroom this year, very interesting & powerful software.
I have been progressing sow as no time to read, ha ha

But I would love to compare with APERTURE which I have yet to try, any APERTURE user's comment?

[myjunk_]

LR newbie here. is there a way to do like full screen slideshow / preview of a picture? The largest I managed to get is to hide away all the side/top/bottom tabs.

[ZulSim]

Click the Play button at the bottom of the right panel.

[bakrihafizhisham]

im using lightroom portable 1.3,and i love it!
the file size is around 21 mb,and can put in any thumbdrive,and use without installing!
it can take any raw file (at least it takes my 40d's CR2),
and can edit in batch easily.
it can do you favours like converting RAW (sorry,i shoot raw) to jpegs in a batch after you twitched manually or as a batch process.
it has all the basic thing that one might need like dust removal,plus every single thing that you'd always do in photoshop,one at a time,this software can do in batches!
owh and it doens alter the pixels,that is,not until you export it out.
so,u only see the changes in the software,and that the original file is untouched.
you dont have to worry if there is a black out as it is autosaved everytime you move on to edit the next file/photo.

it saves a lot of time if youre doing big events,and that you have little time to do it.
but i still use adbo photoshop to do custom adjustments and manual skin softening at time,just in case.

hope this helped a wee tad in what you guys are enquiring.

owhh and in order to play the slide show,press ctrl+enter.
hehhee.
you can view the shortcuts (i remeber most of them as to speed up the work),in HWLP.if im not mistaken.

have a great day!