Customer comments on this selection.
 Decent But Could Be Better
'Managing Your Photographic Workflow with Photoshop Lightroom' is a decent book but my biggest complaint is this is a book about using a Photoshop product for improving image quality and the images in this book are washed out and grainy. I don't know if it's the printing style used or the images themselves, but when you have a crystal clear cover that jumps out at you and then the content within leaves a lot to be desired... well that's just no good.
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br /Overall the book does what I would expect. It shows you the basics of using Photoshop Lightroom, how to get pictures in, what you can do with them, etc etc. This book should improve your workflow and streamline the image editing process but it's not a home run that I would expect.
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br /*** RECOMMENDED
 Excellent overview; now for version 2!!
I read many books on Lightroom 1.XXX in an attempt to create a college tutorial course. This book was concise, to the point and did not waste any time or space in allowing you to get to the info.
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br /The authors love their craft and it shows.
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br /How good is the book?
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br /Well, apart from my copies of Evening's and Orwig's takes on Lightroom 2, if Steinmuller and Gulbins put out a Lightroom 2 update, I'll pre-order.
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Must have
I am a self-taught Photoshop hack. First started using it when version 3 came out (on a TON of 3.5 floppy disks). I have been able to use it enough to generate/ edit web images, scan prints, etc. It is grossly overpowered for what I use it for, but it's all I know and the company I work for is willing to pay for it. I am equally inept in my photographic workflow processes. I just take pictures, use my limited knowledge of Photoshop to get them to a point where I like the finished product, and go on my merry way. Until now.
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br /Managing Your Photographic Workflow with Photoshop Lightroom is helping change my bad habits. Originally written to cover Lightroom 1.2, the processes are still applicable to 1.41, the latest version I am using. I had seen Lightroom and sort of dismissed it as just more $$ to spend until I started reading this book. Managing Your Photographic Workflow with Photoshop Lightroom has given me insight into using the tools contained in Lightroom and how using them will affect my images. At just over 200 pages, this book is full of images and practical examples. I used to edit my images exclusively in Photoshop. Now I do most of my post processing in Lightroom, exporting the results to be uploaded into flickr, iStockphoto, or burned to CD. I doubt I would have changed my habits were it not for this book. Needless to say, it is highly recommended if you have been curious about using Lightroom.
 Too brief to be of use, to many diversions into unrelated issues
I completely disagree with the positive feedbacks regarding this book for a variety of reasons. I took it fascinated by the "covers Version 1.2" note, thus suggesting a specialized "version 1.2" text, a most current book of them all, an advanced insider instruction to Lightroom. The dilemma about Lightroom is that it keeps changing from version to version. Users of this program know about its immaturity and stability issues. "Version 1.2" really sells in such conditions.
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br /Another reason to pick this book was that I like to read the essays from Outback Photo and the FotoEspresso Online Magazine by the same author. But the reality with this particular book is different:
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br /1) Too short to really provide any add-on value to the standard Adobe's manual, and to the many web-zines. 200 pages, minus approx 50 *not* about Lightroom at all, make this book too short to cover any advanced issues in the 5 main modules of Lightroom. This book is virtually just as brief and insufficient, as is the PDF file provided with the Lightroom by Adobe.
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br /2) Tries to please everybody at the risk of not satisfying anybody, to quote the great Donald Knuth from one of his forewords. For example, do you really need to buy a specialized "version 1.2" Lightroom book to learn about what is a Jpeg and what is a RAW file? Yes, its true! This thin booklet spends a few pages to tell you revelations that Jpeg has different levels of compressions, and, yes, you guess it: You should use the lowest compression for highest quality.
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br /3) Digresses into usage of other software and/or hardware. Do you really need whopping 3 full pages with screen shots from a Huey screen calibration software? No, you surely do not need that, a product flyer and a self guiding menu will do it! Besides, Huey is only one possibility. We have also all the "Spiders" and several more. In any case, I would rather be using the manual provided with the device instead of buying an extra book about something else, to look into it for another copy of a hardware gadget manual. I use Huey, its fantastic. And trust me, the menu is self guiding. You ought to press the Next button and proceed with the instructions. These 3 pages 191-193 in this book should be better devoted to Lightroom.
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br /4) Poor print quality. It is really kind of difficult to talk about color, and look at the pale faded looking print by rokynook press. These images look like projected through a light gray filter.
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br /5) Instructions seem to be very MacIntosh oriented, thus not attracting the vast majority of users, who are rather likely to use Windows and see completely different Lightroom menus. Its basic statistics...
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br /I am at peace with author attempt to describe the workflow between Lightroom and Lightzone (8 pages), but this shows even more how few information is about Lightroom 1.2 per se. Do you need more examples of "not to the topic"? Have you seen compact flash cards in a box? Jeez, now you can! Have you seen a card reader? Now you can too.
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br /One puzzling thing about Lightoom are its color curves. I am a seasoned computer scientist with a PhD, I do photograph for 30 years, and yet I fail to make any use of them based on information and instructions provided so far. I would rather be still using RawShooter, but Adobe bought and shut it down to "assimilate" its user base for Lightroom. A look into Adobe's forums shows just how many people are confused, if not lost in Lightroom's baroque interface, shuttered by bugs, malfunctions and poor performance. Such program needs instructions of more experienced photographers, who maybe stand in direct contact with Adobe development team and can explain what the manual and own experiments fail to provide.
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br /Would you believe that the ENTIRE set of development operations, what includes these dreaded tone curves, is covered on mere 32 pages (pages 78 to 111, chapter 4.) Can we really learn anything new but to see another enumeration of menus and sliders in such a brief description?
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br /Example: Split toning, half page 98. ..."split toning can also be (mis)used to reduce the blue cast of your shadows." Excellent, I am excited! Lets see it, lets learn!! Oops, there are no instructions, no lesson of just how to (mis)use the split toning to work on the blue shadows... This was it! Authors said "it can be used" and that was it. This is the KIND OF VALUE PROVIDED BY THIS BOOK. I am sorry, this does not do it.
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br /My recommendation is to take rather Mikkel Aaland's book, what is clearly my favorite among the otherwise hastily thrown books about Lightroom.
 reads like a college text book
I get tired of Scott Kelby's humor but at least his books are readable, and useful. This book, well, I suppose all the information is there but I kept drifting off from the dull text and even duller PC-inspired graphics (they could at least use Mac screen grabs). I think the front cove pretty much sums up the book.
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br /It looks and reads like your basic college text book. It's going back
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