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 enlarge | Author: Scott Kelby
Brand: Pearson Education
Category: Book
List Price: $39.99
Buy Used: $10.00
You Save: $29.99 (75%)
New (48) Used (24) from $10.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  89 reviews
Sales Rank: 24024
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 416
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.1
Dimensions (in): 9.9 x 8 x 0.8
MPN: 9780321492166
ISBN: 0321492161
Dewey Decimal Number: 778.52343
EAN: 9780321492166
ASIN: 0321492161
Publication Date: April 16, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: small crease on back of book..little edge wear...clean pages
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 86-89 of 89 | | « PREV 1 ... | | |
 Excellent Reference April 24, 2007
10 out of 14 found this review helpful
This is the first review that I have taken the time to post.
I find this book to be very concise and well thought out. He puts things in a very-matter-of-fact format that allows the user to get the information he or she needs without going through a great deal of trivial fluff. I also have his book on Photoshop CS2 For Digital Photographers, which brought me up to speed quickly with Photoshop and I'm confident this will do the same with Lightroom.
Just super April 24, 2007
13 out of 18 found this review helpful
after waiting for months for this to come on the market I can say it was worth the wait.
The book is layed out very well and in a logical order that will take you right through the workflow of photography and Adobe Lightroom.
If you have ever read a book by Scott kelby in the past he continues with his same wit and laughs that keep you entertained as you read. If you are looking for just another boring computer software book that is as entertaining to read as the phone book, you will not find it here. On the other hand if you looking for a book full of great and useful tips this is for you.
Unlike his books on Photoshop this book is meant to be read front to back. That is because unlike Photoshop Lightroom is a workflow tool, and things need to be done in a certain order.
Overall you will not find a better Lightroom book on the market today. If you have Lightroom you must get this book
 Some Good Info Marred by the Author's Ego April 21, 2007
167 out of 216 found this review helpful
First, try to see if you can borrow this book or check it out from the library. It has some good points, but those are well bracketed by an endless parade of the author's self-gratifying piffle.
I purchased it because at this point in time (mid-April 2007) there are darn few Lightroom books out there. Hopefully something better will turn up in a few months and I can send this volume to the recycling center.
This book is literary onanism at its extreme. And while author Kelby may sell a lot of books and have a well oiled machine to present his workshops, he apparently can't make the intellectual distinction between what you would SAY to an audience (perhaps hundreds of people trapped in a large, darkened room -- praying they'll get their money's worth and not drift into sleep) and what you would WRITE in a textbook or guide. In fact, it almost seems like the text is a transcript of a workshop presentation, with all the sophomoric asides and lame humor that usually manages to keep people awake and marginally focused.
Examples:
-- The entire three-page introductory Q&A is worthless. You get suckered into it because the assumption is that sooner or later some real information will be passed. Three pages later you're at the end -- and none the wiser.
-- The beginning of each chapter is a little more subtle: For one or a few sentences you almost feel like he's going to address a topic...And then it's back to the drivel. The intro to Chapter Eight (Printing) is especially insulting, implying that a referenced individual is regular user and purveyor of controlled substances. Bad enough the Mr. Kelby believes this passes for humor, but don't foist that off on us, please.
-- There are numerous parenthetical remarks in the step-by-step descriptions. Some are used to clarify a point. Good. Some are used to identify the difference between Mac and Windows commands. Good in concept, but those could have been better presented by effective use of conventions in the text. The third category can only be described as stupid comments. The problem is that the good use of parenthetical comments gets diluted by the other two uses. (See how to deal with this below.)
-- Based on the heavy-handed way that Mr. Kelby touts Nikon and LaCie, my guess is that he doesn't buy his own equipment. (And I shoot Nikon, BTW.)
If you decide that you really need this book you can improve things a little. For large sections of text I recommend a black Sharpie pen with the ULTRA fine point. You can line out hundreds and hundreds of works with no detrimental effects. This includes all three pages of the introductory Q&A (if you decided not to just rip those pages out) and every word of the intro section to every chapter. The ultra fine Sharpie won't bleed through (if you keep it moving) and won't smear. For those shorter sections of drivel that pollute the rest of the book, I recommend one of those tape type Wite-Out pens (such as the BIC Exact Liner). It takes a little practice and a firm surface, but you'd be amazed how much useless junk Mr. Kelby manages to get onto some pages -- and that you can easily cover up.
This book was apparently rushed to publication. Just in my skimming of the book I encountered "The bottom line is white balance is a creative decision..." in the last step on page 133. In the last step of page 135 we find "The bottom line is white balance is a creative decision..." Maybe this wouldn't stand out in a lecture, but when you read it in a book you take a start and wonder if you mis-turned the pages.
There is no glossary, and no illustrations of the filing conventions unique to Lightroom.
A very instructive and clear book on working with Lightroom April 5, 2007
60 out of 72 found this review helpful
This book is about "Lightroom", which is a workflow tool aimed at digital photographers that don't want to take the time to become familiar with the mammoth application that Adobe Photoshop has become because it really isn't necessary for the scope of their work. The book gives you step-by-step directions on the detailed tasks of:
1. Importing your photos into Photoshop Lightroom
2. Sorting and organizing your photos using the Library Module
3. Making minor adjustments to photos using the Library Module's Quick Develop panel
4. Performing major adjustments by editing in the Develop Module
5. Fixing common problems such as red eye, noise, chromatic aberrations, etc.
6. Changing color photos to black-and-white using several different methods
7. Sharing your photos via the Slideshow Module including adding music and choosing playback options
8. Using the Print Module to print your photos in a variety of ways such as adding text, setting up color management, and printing multiple photos on one page.
9. Using the Web Module to create a gallery for your photos viewable via the web.
There are two final chapters that act as capstones. The first of these final chapters takes you through the steps you have learned in this book to produce a wedding portrait workflow whose ultimate goal is to have photos that the clients can proof on the web. The second of these two chapters has a workflow that is specifically for outdoor photographers. All through the book the author leads you through his formula for working through each problem. His method doesn't allow you to go off and take several paths. By working through the author's method of doing things, he hopes you will walk away with a clear idea of how to use Lightroom his way and use that as a jumping-off point for your own investigation of the tool. The photos that the author works with are downloadable so that you can follow along with him using exactly the same photos as he does.
Overall, I really liked the author's approach and I thought it was quite clear with plenty of screenshots so that the reader does not get lost. The only thing I did not like about the book is that it has a jokey style that is done to the extreme in places. In particular, the first part of the book has a largely bogus Q&A session that does answer some serious questions but also wastes some serious space just joking around. Likewise, the first page of just about every chapter has a conversational "surfer dude"/Andre Lamothe verbal style before the author gets down to business. However, if you can overlook this, the book is very good at teaching the reader how to work with Lightroom.
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