Bernskiold Learning » Victoria Bampton

Lightroom 3 – The Missing FAQ

Erik Bernskiold — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:00:14 +0000

Back when Lightroom shipped, this encyclopedia came to life. I reviewed it back then and gave it a solid five star rating for the sheer volume of information contained in the book. Now though, it is Lightroom 3 and the book has had a massive update, both inside and out.

Style and Layout

Information-wise, the book is like an encyclopedia. In terms of how I would say you best read the book, it is the same. The idea to have a book filled with questions and their answers appeals to me as it makes it quick and easy to find what I want, when I want it.

Looking at the title, this is not a book I would want to read from cover to cover, but instead like to have a look at when I face a problem in Lightroom and want a reply to a specific question.

Victoria Bampton, the author, has done a magnificent job at coming up with good questions in this book and answering them in such a way that you truly understand afterwards.

In the book you will find frequently asked questions on everything from the import module through to the web module, all sections rich with juicy content to read.

Design

Since the last edition, The Missing FAQ book has been reworked in terms of design, both on the front and the inside. A disclaimer is in order here however since I did do the cover design of this book. Because of that, it is not my place to comment on the cover.

The design of the inside (which I had nothing to do with) makes for a very good reading experience, though I would wish for a slightly nicer header, footer and note design for the next edition to match with the good-looking general body.

Conclusion

I do not hesitate a minute to recommend this book to any Lightroom user that has questions popping up a little now and then.

By all means, this is not the book where you learn Lightroom from start to finish, but it fills a huge gap answering all of our questions that will appear once we start using the application.

Author: Victoria Bampton
Price: £14.95
Website: www.lightroomqueen.com
Rating: 5/5

Adobe Lightroom 2 – The Missing FAQ

Erik Bernskiold — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 20:47:04 +0000

I posted a while ago about a new great book called Adobe Lightroom – The Missing Manual. Well now with the release of Lightroom 2, Victoria Bampton, the author has already released her updated version for Lightroom 2 (Adobe Lightroom 2 – The Missing FAQ). I’ve just reviewed the book and I think it is brilliant and does truly cover a hole that has been empty. I think it is a very well spent £14.95 (approx. $29.95) where you get almost a little lexicon on Lightroom that you can always keep handy. Thanks also to Victoria for providing all of my readers with a discount code. Upon purchase, just type in the following code (without the quotes) "BM2008" and you’ll get a discount!

Book Tip: Adobe Lightroom – The missing F.A.Q

Erik Bernskiold — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 13:52:05 +0000

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!