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» Walking through the new Lightroom 2 features!

 I promised y’all to post the video walkthrough here on the site as well as on the podcast where it was released yesterday. It’s the iPod/iPhone optimized version I’m posting up here as well.

Tags: Lightroom, Podcast |  Print Post     

» Friday Newsreel

The beauty of weekdays is that there is always so much going on that is always as fun to share!

• Earlier in the week we saw the release of Lightroom 2 and I then also told you about some great resources to learn all the new features and also posted a review of the missing FAQ book. Now the presets are rolling in. First out here are some really cool ones from the great guy Sean McCormack over at the Lightroom Blog. He’s released a collection of more than 70 graduated filters. The collection is available for only €5.00 from his site with samples there as well!
   
• More Lightroom 2 things. I’ve just finished the recording of my walkthrough and just editing it up to post it to the Creative Suite Tips & Tricks Podcast later. I’ll also be making it available here on the blog but then you have to wait until tomorrow. Podcast subscribers get the scoop first
   
• Are you blogging? Do you want to do it from a desktop application? If so you might be interested in this article from Smashing Magazine where they review 15 Desktop Blogging Tools.
   
• If you’re coming along for the Worldwide Photo Walk on August 23rd you might want to know that there have been a lot more cities added over the days, making it a 113 total at the moment! That’s some really cool numbers. I’m going to be leading the walk in Gothenburg, Sweden (the city where I live) along with my buddy Rickard Niklasson. Our walk details have been set and posted on the site now so check it out!

I think that wraps it up for today. I’ve got the video coming up later and I’ve got cool things planned for the entire next week as well (and the weekend) so see you then!

Tags: Blogging, Lightroom, Photowalk, Podcast, Smashing Magazine |  Print Post     

» 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 |  Print Post     

» 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 |  Print Post     

» Late Night Thursday Update

It’s long weekend here in Sweden because we are celebrating the midsummer time. It’s always fun even though it seems like we are getting the sucky and pretty common, rain! I’m not taking any days off work and blogging because I’m behind, but I will be going away for the weekend, from Saturday through Sunday, with net and computer

• Apple has announced today that the iTunes Music Store has sold a total of five billion songs over the years, which is a pretty big achievement. Many congrats to Apple on their milestone.
   
• If you are editing a lot of CSS code you might be interested in a CSS Code Editor. The guys over at Smashing Magazine have tested a few of the available ones and come up with a nice test on their website.
   
• Who doesn’t like the Adobe Exchange? You can get a lot of cool stuff for most of the Adobe CS apps on there. However, a new addition is that there is a new category available, all for Lightroom. So if you like presets etc. visit the Lightroom Exchange.

Tags: Apple, CSS, Exchange, iTunes, Lightroom, Smashing Magazine |  Print Post     

» Friday “Sunshine” News

I think I’ve just about mentioned it in all my blog posts this week! The weather here is fantastic and well, nothing short of smashing and brilliant (I could go on with extreme words like that for too long) which is causing today to be "Sunshine Friday"!

• Adobe has added a new feature to its web based photo editor Photoshop Express. From today you can now import and manage photos that is on your Flickr account in addition to the ones previously available. Pretty cool I’d say if you are using Photoshop Express and Flickr!
   
• I’m getting a lot of questions on how to work with WordPress and how to set it up for certain purposes and I thought I’d start writing a tutorial series about just that. How to work with WordPress, what settings to use, some plugins etc. I don’t have any estimated completion date but it should be within the coming two weeks I assume!
   
• Over at LightroomKillerTips, Matt Kloskowski has a good Lightroom video today about how to backup to another drive instead of your main one. (Your catalog that is) It’s something that’s indeed really hidden.
   
• If you work with the web or are a web designer like me, you probably have heard your share of SEO debates and articles but if you are a little new to the field (or even if you have been there and heard it) you’ll appreciate this article by Nick La over at the Web Designer Wall talking about SEO for Web Designers.

It’s been a long week indeed and it’s been very busy with a lot of things happening, at least for me! Now it is going to be a fun and relaxing weekend in the warm weather. Fear not, I have an article lined up for you guys tomorrow.

I’m going to be away at my cousins confirmation service tomorrow which means I’ll be in a church taking some nice pictures I hope. I might be able to share you some on Sunday!

Tags: Adobe, Lightroom, Matt Kloskowski, Photoshop Express, SEO, Web Designer Wall, WordPress |  Print Post     

» 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 |  Print Post     

» 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 |  Print Post     

» Monday News Stuff

 Today’s been a pretty cool Monday with a lot of music for me, playing flute at a place which I feel was really, really appreciated. So coming up is some of the latest news.

Adobe draws back the Lightroom 1.4 update!

After some problems, Adobe has today removed the update to Lightroom 1.4 for booth Mac and Windows from their site. All users that have installed 1.4 are now advised to remove the version and install 1.3.1 instead.

Rumor: Vista SP1 coming tomorrow?

The latest rumor has it now that Windows Vista SP1 will be released tomorrow. I suppose we just go to wait and see tomorrow don’t we. Microsoft however don’t want to confirm anything other than "on track for mid-March", Amazon has been listing March 18th for a while as the SP1 release date.

Article: Rock your readers like a hurricane!

Today’s article tip is again from Copyblogger where they have a really cool article about rocking your readers like a hurricane! It’s a good read so read it here you too!

Tags: Adobe, Copyblogger, Flute, Lightroom, Music, Vista |  Print Post     

» Lightroom 1.4 and Camera Raw 4.4 released

 Adobe has today released updates to both Lightroom and Camera Raw, bringing them booth up to .4 releases and the change in booth is that they now include support for the newest cameras like the Canon 450D and the Nikon D60.

• Lightroom 1.4: Win | Mac
• Camera Raw: Win | Mac

Tags: Camera Raw, Lightroom, Photoshop |  Print Post