Probably one of the best Ebooks for LR6 with 25% discount until Feb 24th

[Bazza]

I purchased the original version a few years ago and was very impressed with depth of detail plus easy to follow.

http://craftandvision.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=3a17aa8802f4a8960a46d1f26&id=35c1bfdb03&e=00fee9ccc9


follow the link for costing about £13.00 including VAT

[Derek Spillman]

Barrie

I'm currently using LR version 5, would this Guidebook for version 6 still be useful ?

Derek

[Bazza]

Further to my recommendation for new users of LR6 - I have cobbled together the first few intro pages to give some basic training on this software.

Please allow for several small typos as extracting this was more complex than usual....

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LIGHTROOM 6/CC UNMASKED

A Work flow Application

As a Lightroom trainer, every year I train hundreds of photographers who want to get to grips with this powerful application. Very often, they are already using Photoshop and therefore they are developing their RAW files with Adobe Camera Raw. This always leads to the question whether they should use Lightroom or Photoshop.

The answer is of course a more nuanced one: it’s not an either/or story but an “and” story. In summary, it boils down to the fact that Lightroom’s Develop module replaces the Camera Raw part of Photoshop.

The Library module on the other hand, is a much smoother working alternative for Adobe Bridge, the image browser that comes with Photoshop. On top of that, Lightroom throws in a bunch of publication possibilities. Yet, it does not completely replace Photoshop.

For certain things, such as working with text, making photo collages, drawing very complicated selections or making very special corrections, a pixel editor such as Photoshop or Photoshop Elements is still necessary. Luckily, Lightroom provides an exchange possibility with these software applications in that an edited RAW le can be sent over as a TIFF or a PSD to Photoshop for further editing.

The end result of these Photoshop edits is then automatically added back to the Lightroom catalog. The same goes for the collaboration between Lightroom and the so-called plug-ins. These are separate applications that make complicated or advanced tasks, which you’d normally need Photoshop for, simpler or quicker.

With its seven modules, Lightroom is actually a combination of three software applications in one: first of all, it’s a file management application, allowing the volume photographer to stay on top of his ever-growing collection of images.

It’ also a publication package that lets you put images online, present them in a slideshow presentation, print them or turn them into a photo book without having to switch to another application. And nally, lest I forget, it’s also a RAW converter and a pretty darn good one
at that. So, Lightroom combines a number of tasks for which you used to need separate applications.

The advantage of this is that your photographic work flow now becomes a lot more logical and, above all, faster.

Lightroom 6 or Lightroom CC?

Throughout this eBook, I often refer to Lightroom as “Lightroom CC/6” because the application now exists in two versions: the “classical” version that you buy via a so-called “perpetual license,” and a subscription-version in which you subscribe to Lightroom AND Photoshop for a monthly fee ($9.99 + tax).


Both versions currently overlap almost entirely with the major difference being that only Lightroom CC users can integrate their laptop or desktop version of Lightroom CC with Lightroom mobile. However, it’s possible that the future will widen the gap even more, as Lightroom 6 does not support the new Dehaze slider that was introduced with the 2015.1 update of Lightroom CC.


If a function is only available in one or the other version of Lightroom 6/CC, it is so indicated in the text. If not, the reference will be to
use “Lightroom 6/CC” or sometimes simply “Lightroom”.
Case 1 on page 23delves a little deeper into the di erences between both options.

Lightroom versus Adobe Camera Raw

The big difference between Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom is not in the RAW conversion; on the contrary: under the hood, Adobe Camera Raw 9 (the Camera Raw version that comes with Photoshop CC, the new subscription-only version of Photoshop) and the RAW converter in the Develop module of Lightroom CC are identical: you can process a RAW le exactly the same way in Camera Raw as you can in Lightroom.

The engine is the same, but... Lightroom’s bodywork is a lot more streamlined and the dashboard, so to speak, a lot clearer to read.

If you haven’t been persuaded by the Creative Cloud subscription model and therefore are still working with an older version of Photoshop such as CS6 or older, then Lightroom 5 indirectly gives you access to the same RAW converter found in Photoshop CC!

By the way, that engine becomes more powerful with every new incarnation of Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom. Each new version allows you to do things for which you previously needed separate applications or Photoshop. For example, Lightroom 5 introduced a Lightroom version of Photoshop’s Spot Healing Brush and Upright, a handy tool to straighten a crooked perspective. Lightroom 6/CC now lets you blend multiple images to a panorama or HDR image, both processes that previously required Photoshop or third-party plug-ins.

Metadata Editors

Both Lightroom and Camera Raw don’t change the images (data) themselves, but keep track of all changes in the form of text instruction sets that are saved as data about your data, or so- called metadata. Did you just make a square crop of your RAW image and convert it to black and white? Then that information is carefully stored by means of a set of text instructions. Therefore, Lightroom and Camera Raw are called metadata editors, as opposed to Photoshop, which is a pixel editor.

The main advantage of such a metadata editor is that you can very easily synchronize the developing of one image to a number of comparable ones.

Do you have 50 images that all need to have the same sepia tinting? Just correct one of them and you can e ortlessly apply that correction to the 49 other ones. Again, this is something that both Lightroom and Camera Raw allow you to do.


The big difference between Lightroom and Camera Raw lies in where they store this metadata: in the case of Camera Raw, it is saved in a so-called sidecar XMP le, which is stored next to the file (in the case of camera-specific RAW les such as Nikon’s NEF or Canon’s CR2 ) or in the file (in the case of Adobe’s own universal DNG RAW format).

If you were to open such an XMP file with a text editor, you would see the entire developing recipe of the RAW file in the form of text instructions.


In Lightroom, the metadata by default is not stored in such an XMP file, but in the central database, called the catalog. In the catalog, it is stored alongside other metadata such as EXIF (shutter speed, aperture, camera model) and IPTC (data about the photographer, model, etc.).
In order to work faster, Lightroom uses Previews that are stored in a Previews database right next to the catalog le.

This way of working has several important advantages, but also a number of potential pitfalls that the novice Lightroom user should be aware of and that I’ll mention in case 2, Lightroom Dos and Don’ts.

Speed
Because all metadata is stored in one relatively small, central catalog, which normally is stored on a fast, internal drive, Lightroom works a lot faster than say, Adobe Bridge.

You can sort and alter your images in any conceivable way, even without the drive(s) containing the actual images attached to your computer. Lightroom only needs to address your RAW files (and therefore the drive(s) on which those RAW les are stored) when you want to develop your images or print them in high resolution.

Since Smart Previews were introduced in Lightroom 5, you don’t need access to your original images for developing them; you only need them for printing, editing in Photoshop and exporting high-resolution copies or making a Blurb photo book.

Contrarily, in Bridge, the XMP information is decentralised, saved along with the images and therefore will be as scattered across hard drives as the actual images are. For that reason, performing a search in Bridge will take a lot longer, and will require access to all of the drives containing the images you want to search.

Compare it to looking for your lost car keys: there’s a big difference between having to look in just one drawer (the catalog) as opposed to having to search your entire house, your garage, and maybe even your summer cottage!


When the drive your pictures are offline is disconnected (“offline” in Lightroom-jargon, which has nothing to do with the internet connotation of being “o ine”), Bridge simply doesn’t show you these images.

In order to see an overview of all your images in Bridge,
you need to connect each and every drive that contains them!
Lightroom’s Library module is Lightroom’s brain, but that brain is only as smart as you make it by adding keywords, colour labels, and ratings. In Lightroom, you can do so based on the Previews, even without the drive(s) containing the actual RAW les being connected.

The Biggest Downside: Obligatory Import
The main difference between a Lightroom workflow and the classical Photoshop + Bridge or Photoshop + Windows Explorer/Mac Finder work flow is importing.

Before you can do anything with your images in Lightroom, you’ll have to import them. Importing means that you tell your Lightroom catalog where (i.e., in which folders and on which hard drives) your Lightroom images are stored.

Viewed that way, importing is nothing more than making links in Lightroom’s central catalog or database to the image locations. The images themselves don’t wind up in the catalog, only references to their locations. Therefore, the term “importing” is perhaps somewhat misleading.

An important consequence of this that has already trumped many a novice Lightroom user is that after having been imported, your images should never be renamed or moved outside of Lightroom.

Doing so would break the link in Lightroom’s database.

Luckily, Lightroom has all the tools it takes to rename or move your images in case you would need to. Case 30in chapter 5 goes into more detail about this.


Some Lightroom opponents find this necessary import step to be a big drawback, yet it needn’t be. After all, you have to get the images o your card anyway and by doing so using Lightroom, you can both copy and import. On top of that, the Import dialog lets you do other useful things, including adding “top level keywords” (keywords that apply to all images you import). Importing
is so important (no pun intended) that all of chapter 4 is dedicated to it.

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End of extract, for anymore you will need to download ebook via link and get discount
Barrie