Lightroom guidance

oatman911 · 10-16-2009, 08:52 AM

Hey all,

Its been a little while since I've last posted, traveling and moving and starting school again will do that to you. I've recently purchased Lightroom 2.5 and photoshop 4. I am massivly overwhelmed (I haven't even opened photoshop yet, I'm still finding lightroom daughnting).

Does anyone have any advice on good, thorough tutorials for learning lightroom?

I'd like to use it as my primary photo organizer, when I add new photos they'll automatically get added to my libraries, etc... plus use it for editing until I get up and running with photoshop. But I need guidance.

Please help!

Thanks,
Oren

*Wheatfield* · 10-16-2009, 08:59 AM

Scott Kelby has written a few books on both programs that are quite good.
I find his writing style annoying, but his information is good.

*heliphoto* · 10-16-2009, 09:16 AM

I love Lightroom - great app! First of all, it's important to recognize that everychange you make to a photo in Lightroom is reversable! The changes are stored as "metadata", and the original photo is untouched, so as far as making changes to photos with all those sliders and tools in the develop module... go wild! you can always revert the photo later as your tastes evolve. Better yet, make a "Virtual Copy" of the photo in Lightroom and go wild on that - that way the untouched original will be sitting right next to it to remind you of what you started with.

*blackcloudbrew* · 10-16-2009, 09:22 AM

I'd suggest that you look into this thread.

Adobe Lightroom: Mithrandir's Autumn Presets 20090917

These presets are wonderful and we are lucky to have them. This can simplify your pp work.

*PeterAM* · 10-16-2009, 09:44 AM

I've had a difficult time getting up on Lightroom;probably a combination of not devoting enough time to it and the fact that it is different in concept from what I'm used to using. Just had the breakthrough (I think) by watching the Luminous Landscape tutorial ( Luminous Landscape Guide to Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Lightroom 2 [LR2_01_DWNLD] - $39.95 : Zen Cart!, The Art of E-commerce) and using Martin Evening's book ( Amazon.com: The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book: The Complete Guide for Photographers (9780321555618): Martin Evening: Books) for reference. I used LR the other night to work some RAW files and found the amount of control to be excellent. Haven't tried printing with it yet or doing B&W conversions, but am hoping to be able to use it to do pretty much everything that I need and allowing for minimal use of PS.

**Marc Sabatella** · 10-16-2009, 01:45 PM

I wouldn't assume you'll use LR for editing only until you're ready for Photoshop - I think you'll find the editing facilities in LR so convenient and powerful, you'll prefer using them 99% of the time. But all the same, it will will be nice to have Photoshop for the other 1%.

bymy141 · 10-17-2009, 03:14 AM

Actually Adobe has a lot of stuff on their website that can help you started.
For instance the Adobe TV entries helped me a lot a few years ago.
Have a look at: AdobeTV | Learn Lightroom 2.0

- Bert

*Canada_Rockies* · 10-21-2009, 10:17 AM

Originally Posted by Wheatfield

Scott Kelby has written a few books on both programs that are quite good.
I find his writing style annoying, but his information is good.

I find that simply not reading the chapter introductions cuts down on the lame humour annoyance level, but I agree with the writing style criticism. On the other hand, you don't get swamped with technicalities - he writes just the things you need to know when you read the one page topics.

Alfisti · 10-21-2009, 10:28 AM

Originally Posted by Wheatfield

Scott Kelby has written a few books on both programs that are quite good.
I find his writing style annoying, but his information is good.

I find him almost the worst possible person to recommend to a new user. i bought his CS3 book and he recommends using aRGB, a susual he doesn't say why ... he just says.

Now we all know what happens when you use aRGB ........ it hits the fan.

Glen · 10-21-2009, 05:17 PM

I've read through Scott Kelby's book. Like others here, I found the writing style annoying. I ended up with Ross Sheppard's book Amazon.com: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom for Digital Photographers Only (For Only) (9780470047231): Rob Sheppard: Books. I found it much more useful for the basics with the possible exception of the touch up tool which he spends very little time on. Also, Sheppard writes from the perspective of a Windows user but is fair to both windows and Mac users. Kelby reads like an advertisement for a Mac. Just my opinion.

I also found podcasts quite useful as they are only 5 to 10 minutes long but they really explain well how to use one particular feature at a time.

*woodworm* · 10-22-2009, 02:51 AM

Originally Posted by Glen

... I ended up with Ross Sheppard's book Amazon.com: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom for Digital Photographers Only (For Only) (9780470047231): Rob Sheppard: Books. I found it much more useful for the basics with the possible exception of the touch up tool which he spends very little time on.

Came in here to post this. I spent a couple of days just working through this book and found it really useful. It's very easy to understand and an 'easy read'.

I also read the Martin Evening book mentioned above which is also good, though of the two I preferred Rob Sheppard's book

oatman911 · 10-23-2009, 05:47 PM

Thanks all, the help is much appreciated

K-9 · 10-27-2009, 11:50 AM

Does anyone know how to remove photos from lightroom? I opened over 100 photos and they are all at the bottom, but when I click "remove photos from catalog" it only removes one at a time, even when I "select all". I can't seem to get them out other than trashing them.

*Canada_Rockies* · 10-27-2009, 11:54 AM

Originally Posted by K-9

Does anyone know how to remove photos from lightroom? I opened over 100 photos and they are all at the bottom, but when I click "remove photos from catalog" it only removes one at a time, even when I "select all". I can't seem to get them out other than trashing them.

You need to be in grid mode to batch delete. Press G to bring up the thumbnails, then delete.

K-9 · 10-27-2009, 12:11 PM

Phew, thanks that worked! And I just figured out that if I want to retain the edits I did to the RAW files, I either have to leave them in Lightroom, or save as a TIF or JPG before removing them from the Library. When I took them out, and reopened a PEF, it reverted back to original camera settings.