Comments about oreilly Photoshop Lightroom Adventure:

The book is about mastering Lightroom, Adobe's next-generation tool for digital photographers.

It is written by Mikkel Aaland with easy-to-follow text and many illustrations, including double-page photo spreads. The book was written after 12 professional photographers and five Adobe Lightroom team members made a trip to Iceland together. Each photographer has taken one of their pictures and illustrates a certain feature of the program that they used to enhance their photos.

The first part of the book is about importing organizing and stacking your photos.

After getting used to the work space and the tool bars I really began to enjoy the new format. They have a section on using "quick develop" using your own presets.

A great feature is the white balance setting. It works on JPEG and TIFF files but is much more effective on RAW files. This feature enhanced my photos a lot.

I went back and reworked a lot of my pictures that were in my computer and was very pleased with the results.

I was very impressed with cropping in the Develop Module. No more guesswork in hoping that it is correct. The noise reduction feature is great. Once you find the best setting for your camera, you can save the setting to use in the future and it will help you work faster.

The sharpening tool gives you so much control with the sliders. I found that to be a great and most helpful feature.

The feature that was my favorite was the Tone Curve Advanced Control. It is set so when you click on the curve a bubble appears; you cannot drag it to the point of where it gets distorted. I used this a lot on some of my old pictures of the Grand Canyon and was able to bring out the colors that were hidden because of the light and shadows in the canyon.

There is a chapter on black and white conversion, when to use color tinting, grayscale, and other special effects.

There is a whole section on exporting your pictures to show to friends and family or over the internet. The slideshow module has many features, including a template browser, you can add text, music and you can even export it as a PDF slideshow, or a QuickTime slideshow.

The last chapter talks about the print module. It shows you how to add text, frames and many other features.

I have only mentioned a few of the many features that Lightroom has and how the book covers them all in great detail with illustrations. I downloaded the trial version and now am purchasing the program. This is a great book that is well worth the money to get you started using Lightroom and gets a jump start at learning the shortcuts and features.

Comments about oreilly Photoshop Lightroom Adventure:

I have every book published about Lightroom. All of them are great book, but Lightroom Adventure is the only one where you can go beyond the how to into the why.

Beautiful illustrated you are able to experience when, why and how to use Lightroom by looking over the shoulder of others that have use the program.

Great Job!

Comments about oreilly Photoshop Lightroom Adventure:

When I really got into photography I could not stand editing my photographs. I personally find Photoshop to be more work than it's worth. A fellow club member introduced me to Lightroom. I enjoy editing so much more now. With this book it even became easier and faster to do. I was unaware of all the things that lightroom could do.

I found this book to be one of the better written books on Photoshoping yet. It was easy to read and especially easy to follow along as you try the things described in the book. For me, I learn by doing. With this book you can just pick it up and read it or you can follow along and try the things being described right in the program.

I found the photographs in the book very interesting and again they followed along with the text and you could see what was being described. In all a very good book that I have recommended to all the members of PhotoKenosha. This book has brought some people out of the I don't like Lightroom idea.

Comments about oreilly Photoshop Lightroom Adventure:

From the day I first tried Lightroom I quickly became an evangelist. Though still having room for improvement, Lightroom is hands down the best photo workflow management & adjustment software I have used. As a photographer I am continually asked what software I recommend, but with that I am also asked to teach how to use it.

Now I have found the book I recommend to others looking to dive into a serious application for their photo management and development. Along with the fun storyline accompanied with amazing photos from a land most of us will never see, the book is informative and easy to follow.

Though some assumption is made as to general knowledge with working a computer and dealing the importance of developing photos, even a beginner to digital photography can make their way through the instructions and visuals. If I were pressed to pick an intended audience it would be the amateur photo enthusiast who is looking to graduate from Picasa or iPhoto. The semi- or beginning pro would also find great value in this book as a wonderful introduction to the software that is to become their primary interface post photo shoot.

Though I would have enjoyed even more tips and tricks along with situational secret recipes, I recognize the need for the overview aspect of the majority of the book.

As Lightroom is really manual-less other that a spartan help section, this truly is the missing manual everyone first timer should read.

Comments about oreilly Photoshop Lightroom Adventure:

Photoshop Lightroom Adventure

Mastering Adobe's next-generation tool for digital photography

by Mikkel Aaland, published by O'Reilly

Reviewed by Hal Work, Eureka Photoshop Users Group, 8/10/07

In 2006, twelve photographers and five Adobe employees traveled to Iceland for an adventure. The adventure was two-fold; photograph Iceland and field-test a beta of Adobe's new Lightroom software with the help of the five Adobe folks most of whom happened to be on Adobe's Lightroom team.

The cover blurbs speak glowingly of the beauty and wealth of the contents of the book. It's all true.

The subtitle is accurate. You can learn Lightroom from this book. It contains coherent explanations and copious screenshots.

The layout of the book is very well organized. When I went looking for things, I could find them.

What differentiates this book for others are the beautiful Iceland images and Chapter 8. That chapter is called "Develop Recipes from Iceland." Each recipe shows the before and after images and the Develop Module setting that enabled the changes. Settings were used for tasks that they really weren't meant for.

I've been using Lightroom from beta 3 up to version 1.1 which this book is written to. I'd already learned most of the "inside the box" processes in Lightroom. But, this book showed quite a few "outside the box" processes.

I was so pleased with the book that as soon as I had finished it, I called another member of our user group who had just downloaded the trial copy of Lightroom the day before and offered him the book. I have nothing but glowing things to say about this book. It's rare when I'm this excited about a book.

Comments about oreilly Photoshop Lightroom Adventure:

Mikkel Aaland has written some outstanding user guides for Adobe imaging software. As a coffee-table glossy travelogue, the book's images shine. But it's a tail wags the dog situation when it comes to actually using the product -- here the text glosses over the tough parts and ignores differences between the Mac and PC platforms. Typo's are legion, proofing is lackadaisical. Altogether, a handsome paperweight that disappoints in the lack of real meat. Even Scott Kelby does better than that!