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» Book Tip: Adobe Lightroom - The missing F.A.Q

Today, I want to share with you something really cool. A friend of mine, Victoria Bampton (aka. The Lightroom Queen) has very recently released an e-book about Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. The book is really cool, named "Adobe Lightroom - The missing F.A.W", it’s an F.A.Q with questions and clear, precise answers to them. It’s just a great way to be able to find the quick and clear answers to your questions if you have them and the book really contains most of the most asked questions there actually is about Lightroom. I asked Victoria to describe the book a bit, talk a little bit about her goals with it and why she wrote it. She kindly enough agreed to do it.

Lightroom was officially released on 19th February 2007 after a long public beta period, and it became an instant hit.  The problem everyone had, though, was that it was an entirely new idea, and there was very little information available on how best to use it.  The help files are never the most scintillating read, and half the information wasn’t in there either.  As a result, people flooded the forums looking for information, and a really good community developed around it.  

Over the course of time, I realised that exactly the same questions were coming up time and time again, and whilst a few good books had been published, there was no real reference material.  A lot of people like to dive straight into software without ever reading a book, and just want a reference guide when it all goes wrong.  Others will sit down and read a tutorial book, but when they have a question, tutorial books often don’t answer it.  And if you got stuck, you’d have to spend hours searching the web for other people who’d had the same problem, or ask on a forum and wait ages for someone to help.  

 

I’ve spent so many hours answering all of these questions on a variety of forums, it made sense to compile it into a large FAQ book.  It’s the questions that people ACTUALLY ask, rather than the ones that engineers think you will.  It’s full of answers to questions that everyone hits at some stage, and other questions that you just don’t think to ask, but that make you say "oh, THAT’s how you do it…!!!" when you find out.

 

It’s been fascinating to write - I started out thinking it might be around 50 pages, but it’s just grown and grown, and the 1.4.1 version is now 329 pages, and the 2.0 version will be even thicker.  But the great thing is, it’s laid out in such a way that you can easily skip to the bit you want, and the PDF is fully searchable, in case you’re not quite sure what you’re looking for.

 

So I’m just busy finished off the 2.0 version ready for release at the same time as 2.0…. in the meantime, 1.4.1 version is available for instant download, 2.0 version is available for pre-order on the website, and there’s a discounted bundle if you want the 1.4.1 version right now and to pre-order 2.0 too. 

You can go and read more about this book over at her website, the Lightroom Queen. The e-book runs for £14.95 (which is about $29.95) and you can get it on her website. What’s more cool though, Victoria released a discount to readers of this blog, so upon checkout, just enter the code BM2008 for a discount on the book!

Tags: E-Book, Lightroom, Lightroom Queen, Missing F.A.Q, Victoria Bampton    

» It’s the Friday Stuff

It’s once again this time of the week. It’s Friday and it’s a long weekend here. In the morning I’m going to be catching a train down south to join my mum at my grandparents house. I hope for some great shooting weather there and to be able to post some new shots. Meanwhile, here are some news from today!

• If you are a Lightroom user and move between a laptop and a desktop a lot and want to be able to in a good way move Lightroom stuff like that as well, you probably want to check out Matt Kloskowski’s post today over at his blog where he talked about that. Check it out here.
   
• I posted up a new review in the reviews section earlier today. If you like me are a Mac user and use the Twitter service, you might want to check out the review of the Twitterific application.
   
• I hope you are reading this amazing comic strip, but in the event that you aren’t, go and check out What the Duck. It’s a great comic strip available on the site right here. Should start up your weekend right.
   
• I’m working on some cool new website sections and updates both here and on XLD Studios and both sites will get a few new cool things added coming soon. A post is over there describing the summer changes on that side.

Tags: Lightroom, Twitterific, What the Duck    

» Thursday Quick-News

• Over at Photoshop Insider, Scott Kelby posted a very good post with what he wants to see in the next version(s) of Photoshop and Lightroom. It’s some really good ideas that I really like and agree on.
   
• If you are a keen photographer you should have checked out JPG Magazine and if not, then you should go ahead and do that right now. It’s a really cool photography magazine with contests and featured amazing photography.
   
• The Mac program Delicious Library has been updated to its second version featuring a lot of new updates and cool things. It’s only available for Mac OS X 10.5 and if you are interested in it and you are not using Leopard, you can still purchase the older version for use with Panther and Tiger. You can purchase a brand new copy for $40 and an upgrade from the old runs for $20.

Tags: Delicious Library, JPG Magazine, Photoshop Insider    

» Lightroom 1.4.1 and Camera Raw 4.4.1

Adobe has just released the updates to both Lightroom 1.4.1 and Camera Raw 4.4.1 fixing the problems that arised in 1.4 and 4.4 respectively. It’s the same new features as preivously with added camera support but without the bugs. Download links are available below for both Lightroom and Camera Raw for Mac and Windows.

Lightroom 1.4.1: Macintosh | Windows
Camera Raw 4.4.1: Macintosh | Windows

Tags: Adobe, Camera Raw, Lightroom    

» Lightroom 2.0 Beta Released!

Adobe has today released Lightroom 2.0 Beta, which contains a lot of new features that are all user-requested. The beta version is available from the Adobe Labs from today and on and it is downloadable on a 30-day trial if you don’t have a 1.x license, if you do just enter it and your copy is good through Aug. 31. Also note that it is indeed a beta version and shouldn’t be used in production environments.

Tags: Adobe, Beta, Lightroom