Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 - The Missing FAQ - Real Answers to Real Questions Asked by Lightroom Users

"Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4: the missing FAQ" is a different kind of reference book for Lightroom users... it digs down deep into the real questions everyday and Pro users have about using the product and presents them in an easy to find, easy to understand way. I highly recommend this tremendous resource. Literally, every question in the book, from real users, is listed in the HUGE Table of Contents. As Victoria says, this isn't just theory, this is a reference book with workarounds and solutions and it covers the full extent of the program in a clear and simply put style. I bought the paper version (released on my birthday and bought as a gift to myself) and the PDF and eBook versions are very useful too and even easier to search.The Kelby and Evening books are great, and I agree with other reviewers that Kelby is especially good for beginners and Evening's books have great depth, but they are constructed and designed totally differently. I can't always find the answers I need there. Yes they give the basics & foundation and take you through the process well, and I have loved and admired them too, but what if you hit a snag? Where do you go? Her book fills that need admirably.Victoria Bampton's book has a different approach; she knows the Lightroom forums and user groups very well and the problems and questions folks who use Lightroom have again and again. I find her books to be the most useful of the bunch and love how she designed it. Despite the other fine books covering aspects of Lightroom on the market, this one was sorely needed! It is the one I want close at hand while I am actually working. Ms Bampton's book has the basics and great intros at each chapter, but the main thing is the extensive list of questions with real world answers and solutions. I appreciate her warm and open conversational writing style as well.It is amazing to me how on top of it she stays with any and all changes and issues with Adobe Lightroom, and has since the beginning, with continuous updates and personal responses to thorny questions that pop up unexpectedly sometimes during production. I highly recommend this book and Victoria Bampton as an author & teacher, she rocks; I couldn't imagine a more helpful and responsive resource!

Whether you are a new user of Lightroom or a pro, this is by far the best single reference on Lightroom 4. It is a superb reference book; it is not a "how to" book though you will find it much easier to learn how to use the program efficiently if you refer to this book. The table of contents spells out in great detail where to find answers to your questions. While the book is available as an ebook or as a pdf, I personally find having the actual printed book in my office, extremely useful. I have the ebook on my lap top for when I travel. Buying the book allows one to get the ebook at no cost.

This book is amazing. I am a beginner with Lightroom and had taken getting started DVD training but it wasn't until I got this book that I gained insight on how this program can be used. How to accomplish tasks is clear and easy to follow. The best part is Victoria gives reasons why you might want to do a process or not. Sometimes the Lightroom settings can be confusing - what will the program do if I set this option? Victoria explains it all (at least I haven't found a question yet that wasn't answered.) There is not only FAQs but also procedures on how to accomplish what you want to do.What really baffled me as a new user of Lightroom was how to proceed with organizing my photos. There is a whole chapter on "Designing Your Workflow". Victoria doesn't tell you it has to be done a certain way but gives samples workflows so you can design your own to meet your needs. I actually read this chapter 1st even thought it is chapter 17. Then I read about GPS, then Chapter 7 about Catalogs, then the Web Module since I had to create a web "slide" show right away. Now I am reading Chapter 2 after reading the introduction since she gives a lot of good information on how the program works and tips on what to look out as you use Lightroom and process you photos.This book is going to bring me up from a beginner Lightroom user to someone that knows what they are doing! I am sure I will continue to use the book as I come up to speed with Lightroom. A bonus of buying the paper book is, you still get to download the pdf, kindle, or ebup version of the book.

I almost gave up on Lightroom 4. Thought I would give one last ditch effort to find a book with answers to MY questions, not the proverbial "frequently asked questions" generally developed by the software writers and marketing moguls. As a side note, Lightroom 4 is a phenomenal program. But it can leave you scratching your head with simple questions like, "I just made a copy of a photo and saved it in the same fiolder. Why doesn't it show up in Lightroom??" Lightroom doesn't operate on the Microsoft filing system you're used to. This book explains that in simple terms. This book simply addresses the questions you might ask (under your breath at times...) about why something doesn't do what you expect it to do when navigating Lightroom. It answers plain questions honestly and doesn't try to color the answer so it looks good in print. There are so many different questions you could ask and trying to find answers on line at Adobe is extremely time consuming navigating through their menu systems. The questions I had are clearly in this manual. In the first day I started to read it, I found answers to some of the more perplexing issues, and I found many shortcuts, tips for processing, and much more. If your questions are not in this manual, you can write the Lightroom queen and she answers them. Great resource and once you purchase the book, you also get an online version to keep in your computer, notebook, or I pad just by asking, no extra charge. One thing to note, the questions in this book are in a sort of abstract manner and doesn't have the colorful chapters like you might find in a Kelby book, but the answers are in there. Using the online version is great because you can search for key words. But the book is a great read if you simply want to navigate it and look for new stuff.

REVISION: I haven't changed my rating for this book which is an excellent attempt to try to explain a strange program.But, the program itself (I have just posted a 3 Star review where you can see my reasons in detail) is so unreliable that I would not recommend it. Certainly I strongly recommend that you try the free trial of the program from Adobe first.When I wrote the review I assumed it was all my fault, but after frustrating months of losing photos and trying to get the hopelessly buggy indexing to work, I'm close to giving up on it. Briefly, the whole-image sharpness, colour etc. processing is excellent (though the essential parts are in Adobe Camera RAW that comes free with Photoshop CS or Elements anyway), but the management tools are too buggy to be relied on and Lightroom does not contain any useful image editing tools apart from an excellent crop and rotate.I've revised my review with these deficiencies in mind.Lightroom 4 is not an easy program to get started with, strange, unintuitive ways of doing things. You can't start by just dabbling with it (like the more comprehensive Photoshop for instance) and, to begin with, I was close to giving up. This was not helped by the absence of any kind of printed guide, an indifferent PDF manual and a very poor "Help" options within the program.The excellent on-line third party documentation helps. In fairness to Adobe, much of this is accessible through their Support site. BUT there are two BIG problems with relying with online advice:1. You do have to be sure you are reading the advice for Version 4 because web-links often do not make this clear and, as other reviewers have pointed out, there have been significant changes from earlier versions.2. You really need to adopt a consistent workflow to use this program and the vast amount of advice out there can be confusing as different people will choose different approaches which may not mix well. So I'd recommend choosing one principal guide and using online searches for the occasional question that remains unresolved.This book does exactly what it claims - informed answers to the vast majority of things you need to know to use the program effectively. It is clearly and logically laid out and the advice is concise and, as far as I've been able to see, accurate. There is a good index too. The production quality is excellent - it IS a properly, professionally printed and manufactured book. Apart from the cover, it is in monochrome but this is no problem at all in use.You also get free access to pdf, Kindle and ePub versions and the pdf, at least, does include colour. AND you have priority help when you need it from Victoria herself, who hosts the excellent Lightroom Queen website. Keep the Amazon receipt when the book comes - you will need proof of purchase to get these extras.I first bought Scott Kelby's book as it had such glowing reviews, but I found it too wordy for a reference book, with insufficient subheadings to find what I wanted: it is written like a chat. I can see Scott's reasoning - the program needs a logical, sequential approach and a light-hearted approach can make this more palatable. Fine in a lecture, but I found it very heavy going in a book particularly when using it for reference. I much prefer Victoria's Q&A approach. You may disagree! Try searching online for Victoria Bampton and Scott Kelby and see how you would feel with a weighty tome in their style. Both are that - they have to be!But I can't emphasize enough that I would recommend anyone buying Lightroom for the first time to TRY THE FREE TRIAL VERSION FIRST. If you think it's worthwhile, consider buying this book as a manual. Try searching for the Lightroom Queen website first and for the work of other writers/advisers: Laura Shoe, Martin Evening (I have two of his superb Photoshop books)and Phil Nelson are also excellent - as well as Scott Kelby of course.If you are new to Lightroom, you may wonder why I think you need a comprehensive guide. The learning curve for Lightroom is right up-front because of the non-destructive editing on which Lightroom is based. This is marvelous, particularly with RAW images, because you do not need to keep saving multiple copies (or layers in Photoshop) of huge uncompressed files to keep working on them. Nor do you you need multiple copies in different folders arranged by date, theme, place, shoot, collection etc. as the tagging system does that on one image (Windows will do that too now of course but Lightroom takes it much further). The tiny text files, which record your editing, and the bigger database that holds your index need to be integrated to recognize one another. This means you need to "Import" your pictures to Lightroom to index them and work on them, and "Export" them to work on them in other programs or move them onto media outside your computer etc.As I said at the start - you can't just dabble and you still have to be aware of the pitfalls - most of which are listed on page 75 of this excellent manual as The Top 10 Gotchas.

A brilliant concept which could be used for other software.To all intents and purposes, this appears to be a privately published book. It does not have the imprint of any of the major publishing houses and the writer-publisher deserves to be rewarded for her idea and its execution. The premise is a simple one; take all the questions ever asked about Lightroom and its users and present the answers in a logical order such that those about loading the library are in one place and those about image adjustment, for example, are in another. There are probably more answers to questions in this one book than you will find in any number of books covering all versions of Lightroom published to date.I cannot say that every possible question has been answered but probably just about every sensible one has.There is a listing of available keyboard shortcuts at the end of the book and a reasonably good index.Fortunately, it is not 100% text in content and there are screen captures of the various workspaces, screens, menus etc where they will be of some assistance. By its very nature, it is not a book that you will necessarily need to read from first page to last but it is one to which you will probably return when necessary.Comprehensive and well-executed, it will be a worthwhile addition to any digital photographer's bookshelf and a companion to any other book on Lightroom that you own or are considering.

For anyone who finds most text books a little daunting, then this could be a potential solution. It is 'home made' and makes no pretence toward being the book that 'every pro photographer should have'. This does not mean it is simplistic - just simply written in a manner that any enthusiastic amateur - especially, perhaps, those of advancing years such as I - can understand. In summary, I have learned more about Lightroom, that I am confident will be retained, in half an hour, than from all the other books I have borrowed or purchased since Lightroom One.

I bought this when I started to used Lightroom, and find it easier to use than a digital version. But as I've usgraded my Lightroom, I also have the Digital version on my computer for reference.Best guide I've seen. Highly recommended.

Looked at a few books on Lightroom before going for this one. This book is an excellent guide to the software regardless of your experience. For me its a very good reference source which can be used to find the usual "how do I do that" type of question - it also gives exellent guidance on why the software works the way it is. Its full of a great deal of detail and I highly recommend for the Lightroon novice or experienced user

You will just love this software, once you get your head around it. If you are a regular user of adobe software, the learning curve will be very easy if you are new to adobe products the learning curve will be steep. this is a must have product for any person taking lots of photo`s and want`s to adust the white balance in many photo`s quickly, this product is ideal.

Victoria Bampton, has produced an excellent and unique reference work that is most informative and user-friendly. Whether you may be an experienced user or a new user of Lightroom, you will find this book invaluable. The unique layout of the work enables you to swiftly find an answer to all the problems you are likely to encounter and I would recommend it to everyone who seeks to improve their skills in the digital darkroom.

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Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 - the Missing FAQ - Real Answers to Real Questions Asked by Lightroom UsersExcellent read and in laymens language would highley recommend it Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 - the Missing FAQ - Real Answers to Real Questions Asked by Lightroom Users

I found this book to be a great source of information alongside Lightroom 4.The layout is easy to follow and the author has clearly taken great care in her design. Well recommended.

A great way into the complexities of LR from a genuine user, with the additional enhancement of web and forum backup.

Good approach for those new to LightRoom.

Arrived on time and performed as requested.

a good read. easy to find answers. Well set out and easy to follow. have not given five stars because I have not owned it very long but has been well used in a short time.

Good easy to read book and the knowledge depth is exellent helpful e mail support.Keep up the good work