Lightroom 4: Streamlining Your Digital Photography Process

PREFACE

I wrote this book so that photographers can learn Lightroom as easily as possible. My goal is always to strike a balance between simplicity and thoroughness and I’ve tried to make the topics easy to learn while providing enough technical detail for a practical, useful mastery of Lightroom.

This book is for photographers who don’t want to figure everything out themselves but still want an in-depth understanding of Lightroom. The concepts and instruction in this book are based on what I’ve learned teaching countless clients and students over the past six years since Lightroom was first released. Over the years, most of my clients and students have been wedding, portrait and event photographers with a results-oriented focus. Lightroom isn’t necessarily something these folks do for fun; they want to accomplish something important, as quickly and easily as possible. This is what I’ve tried to provide in this book. Of course, for the photographers who enjoy taking their time to finesse each image to perfection there is plenty to sink your teeth into. I’ve addressed the most important challenges--and opportunities--inherent with using this powerful software.

Lightroom has come a long way since it was first introduced in 2006. Version 4 offers a host of new and improved features as well as bug fixes and support for the latest cameras. Adobe has done a great job of addressing the real-world needs and concerns of photographers and version 4 provides most (if not all) the tools ...