Here’s another book from Adobe Press that covers Lightroom 2: The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 HOW-TOs by Chris Orwig. This is the second Lightroom 2 book I have used, and so far I like this book the best.
Chris Orwig is a photography instructor at Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara California. I think his background as an educator makes his presentation of the material easy to follow.
This book is not as all encompassing as the Martin Evening tome, but it’s faster and much easier to read. Martin Evening’s book is a good reference, but ponderous. Many times I would read a paragraph and not know what I just read. I found myself re-reading paragraphs several times. Kind of like reading a legal document where you have to parse everything. Very tedious.
Easy Read
I did not have that or any problem reading Lightroom 2 HOW-TOs. It runs just 237 pages and I was able to get through almost all of it in just one reading. Very understandable. It is also half the price of the other book.
As in Evening’s book, the chapters cover the order of workflow: Import, Organize, Develop, Output. The way the book is organized there are 100 separate topics that are organized into 16 chapters. Each topic is one or two pages, which is a good bite-size chunk.
When I started reading the book, it was a little different than I expected from the cover. The subtitle is 100 Essential Techniques, so I thought there would be 100 tutorials like you find in so many Photoshop books. But it is really just 100 individual topics such as #37 adding Keywords or #39 Working With Metadata or #51 Correcting White Balance. It’s actually a very effective organization.
Here are the chapters:
- Getting Started 1
- Importing Images 25
- Library Module Overview 39
- Library Module Organization 63
- Library Module–Quick Develop 77
- Library Module–Metadata 83
- Library Module–Edit and Export 93
- Develop Module–Overview 101
- Develop Module–Basic Adjustments 111
- Develop Module–Specialized Adjustments 131
- Develop Module–Adjustment Brush 153
- Develop Module–Image Cleanup 167
- Develop Module–The Graduated Filter 173
- Slideshow Module 181
- Print Module 195
- Web Module 215
As you can see, there are five chapters on the Library Module, six chapter on the Develop Module and one chapter on each of the output modules. Each chapter is fairly short and is made up of several techniques that are just one or two pages long. It lets you just read small chunks when you want to perform some task.
Negatives
I don’t have too many negatives with this book. It was an easy read and the writing style is easy to follow. Sometimes the author comes up with some strange analogies. It makes me wonder if he experimented with some kind of hallucinogenic drugs in his youth. In fact , there is a picture of him surfing so I am sure of it. Way, Dude. (Just kidding.)
Final analysis: This is a good easy read for Photoshop Lightroom 2. Not such a hefty reference but it gets you started and covers all the steps. I definitely recommend this book.
Title: The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 HOW TOs
100 Essential Techniques
Author: Chris Orwig
Publisher: Adobe Press www.adobepress.com
published by Peachpit, 1249 Eighth Street, Berkeley CA 94710 www.peachpit.com
Date of Publication: 2009
Price US $24.99
Buy this book and other books about Lightroom 2 from amazon.com
