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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    

» Late Wednesday Quickies

It’s getting late here when I’m typing this and I’m almost about to head to bed but I thought I should do a little update before. I just finished an extremely busy evening. Right after school I had to go to a three hour intro course to driving, which is mandatory for everyone wanting to start practise driving here in this country, feels good to have it done but it was painfully slow, especially knowing you have a french test tomorrow Wish me luck.

• Free books are always cool and the guys over at SitePoint has right now got a full book available to download, yours to keep forever, called "The Photoshop Anthology: 101 Web Design Tips, Tricks & Techniques". It’s said to be a great book for designers and I just downloaded it myself. It’ll be a little time before I can read it myself though. Got to much on my plate, but it sounds cool and you can only download it for free for the next 30 days!
   
• I’m becoming more of an InDesign addict and really starting to using the program a lot more (it’s fun). Apart from noticing that in the tutorial index I’ve found a cool site for you all other InDesign users as well. It is called InDesignSecrets and run by Anne-Marie Concepcion. It’s a really good tips blog that makes a good read any day.
   
• If you do a lot of RGB to CMYK or CMYK to RGB colour conversions, then you’ll probably appreciate this little colour conversion tool available online, for free!

Tags: Books, Colour, InDesign, Web Design    

» Thursday News Update

Congratulations to Scott Kelby

I want to congratulate Scott Kelby on the news that his Digital Photography Book Volume 1 is the best selling photography book ever right now! What’s even more is that currently his Volume 2 of the book is selling much more than volume one did for the same amount of time when it was released! Many congrats to Scott on this big achievement!

New online class from Kelby Training - Creative Integration with Taz Tally

Kelby Training has launched yet another new online training class called "Creative Intregration" hosted by Taz Tally. In this class you’ll be walked through how to set up the different creative suite applications to work better with eachother and how to use them together in a good way. I’ve watched most of the lessons in the class and I must say Taz has done an amazing job with it!

Web Design Forums

There are a lot of forums on the web and if you are a web designer, chances are that you might be looking for one to be a member on or you are at some already but want more to be on. Smashing Magazine posted a good list today with a little synopsis following each forum in their list. What they’ve done is listing a couple of forums they like with thumbnail and info.

Tags: Kelby Training, Scott Kelby, Web Design    

» Training News

Wedding Photography with David Ziser - 15 ways to improve on-camera flash

David Ziser has now a brand new online class over at KelbyTraining.com on improving on-camera flash for wedding photography. The official class title is "15 ways to make Your On-Camera Flash Take Better Photos" and what you’ll be learning is to take better flash photos, with your flash on the camera, which could be very useful for anyone who has got a flash and are mainly using it on the camera, or if you are looking to get one and want to know what you can do up-front. So go over to the class at KelbyTraining.com.

Photoshop Elements 6 for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby and Matt Kloskowski is out!

The brand new book, "Photoshop Elements 6 Book for Digital Photographers" co-authored by Scott Kelby and Matt Kloskowski is now on its way to the bookstores. The book deals with all the new things now in the new version of Photoshop Elements and they have added a lot of new chapters for example a big one about Camera Raw handling using PSE 6. You can be one of the first who gets the book by ordering it at Amazon.com or Barnes&Nobles.com.

Creative Suite Tips & Tricks on its way to relaunch!

Yes, you read that right, after some time being down due to bandwidth trouble and hosting trouble, the Creative Suite Tips and Tricks podcast will be brought back at the end of this week (alas a new episode coming next monday). It’s going to have a complete redesign and you’ll be seeing a lot of new and improved stuff there. On the track, I have an episode plan that is spanning a good 12 weeks or so into the future. Just keep reading here to perhaps get a little sneak peak on the new look and episodes

I think that about it rounds off the training news right now so again, stay tuned for all the cool stuff. Oh and also, I updated the reviews section with a couple of new reviews this weekend.

Tags: Creative Suite, David Ziser, Erik Bernskiold, Kelby Training, Matt Kloskowski, Online Training, Photoshop Elements, Scott Kelby    

» Tuesday Rockin’

Here is the wonderful news coming at you this rockin’ wonderful Tuesday! First off, we have a new episode of the Photoshop User TV, produced by the folks at NAPP, it’s their 102nd one! So go and check it out right here!

Scott Kelby “Seven Point System” book!

The magnificent Scott Kelby has announced a new book that appears to become really smashing! It’s called “The Photoshop Seven-Point System” and, well, everyone that has read the draft says it’ll be just awesome. Scott has posted a video preview on his blog, so take a look at that here. At least I have already pre-ordered it!

Creative Suite Tips & Tricks Podcast on iTunes!

Yep, my Creative Suite Tips & Tricks Podcast is now online at iTunes and you can check it out at the links here.
iTunes | Website

Another award won!

I’m feeling happy still because I signed on today at the forums on the NAPP site only to see a thread congratulating me to another Editors Choice. Last time it was Image of the Week and this time it was Editors Choice! I’m really honored! Oh, and it is the picture on the left of this post

That’s it for the news right now! I’ll see you back with more cool things later on!

Tags: 7 point-system, Award, Photography, Photoshop User TV, Scott Kelby