Help with lightroom 4

I have DPP & photoshop Ele 6 if I get lightroom 4 do I need a book to set it up

Not really. Everything is pretty self explanitory. There are a few decisions to be made. But you can ask here. But a book is great for a quick referance if you want to dig into it.

you dont need a book, but conceptually people have trouble understanding LR in general. I see LR as a combination of a photo catalog and digital darkroom (hence the name Lightroom). with LR4, you can import, organize, edit and soft proof your photos for pring without using another application. most people find that they could do 95%+ of their PP with LR. The hardest part in understanding LR is how the catalog works and how you design your own workflow. There are tons of tools and filters to play with your style of workflow. If you need a book, Scott Kelby will release an updated version of his LR book. There are plenty of youtube tutorials and adobe has tutorials too.

Lightroom can be "deceptively simple" to get started in, but it has some definite complexities, both in the organizational features and in the Raw developing features...so:

There are three great Lightroom "primers" and I highly recommend getting one or more and working through them as soon as you can get LR, if nothing more than a free trial. The authors to look for (in Amazon or such) are Scott Kelby, Marting Evening and Victoria Bampton.

In the meantime, you will want to read and work though Lightroom Help, the "official" Users Guide. It is well put together and, again, highly recommended!

And, a nice feature about LR Help is that it's available as a .pdf online. Search for "lightroom 4 help pdf":

http://help.adobe.com …sing/lightroom_​4_help.pdf

With a free trial and Help, you can become an "expert" before you even buy it!

Seriously, start at page 1 and plow through it, practising what you learn, and you might be amazed at what all is in the app!

And, note that at the end of the Help module/pdf is a comprehensive, organized list of keyboard shortcuts. You don't realize how useful those can be until you start using them for frequently-used functions, and then you wonder how you got by without them.

Hope this helps a bit!

http://tv.adobe.com …be-photoshop-lightroom-4/

This might help.

The most important and first thing to be conscious of where to set up the library the first time you open it. Video tutorials I watched suggested an external drive. When you have set this up always move files around within Lightroom even it is between external drives and your main drive. Outside of that once you get used to the concept of importing and exporting files it is pretty basic.

This is good. If you want the full blown version go to the home page. Very inexpensive.

http://www.lightroomqu​een.com …issing-faq/book-excerpts/

So you know, the LightroomQueen site is owned/hosted by Victoria Bampton, who I mentioned above, and she is an expert cited by Adobe (in Lightroom Help) so anything you can get off of that site will be helpful!

And, I agree with D.P. to get the organization concepts and features down right off the bat! I have the impression that some people "skip over" that part because they don't see it as "important" and/or "interesting", and then boy, do we here from them when they have problems!

Tony is spot on!

I got Scott Kelby's Lightroom book and studied it in detail before I bought the program. That really helped to get my "feet on the ground" and off to a good start. Particularly with regard to understanding the organization concepts of the program -- if I hadn't read the book first I'm sure (knowing me) I would have ignored that part and would have failed to make use of some of the most powerful features of the program.

^^Plus One on the Kelby book. The Kelby "style" has put a lot of people off, but when I read his first LR1 version while getting started I was quite happy with it! He is an "easy" read and gives you great step-by-step walk-throughs.

And, he also hosts the site LightroomKillerTips.co​m, which is a great place for LR tips and tricks once you've gotten your basic learnin' down, and of course he hosts KelbyTraining.com which has a crew of experts in both Lightroom and Photoshop and which offers a good "subscription" service, not to mention being the president of NAPP (National Association of Photoshop Professionals).

I recently dropped out of NAPP, but among other things I have a pile of Photoshop User magazines, a free subscription for joining, with a lot of useful stuff, and after Lightroom came out they dedicated a fair part of the magazine to LR articles and tutorials and such.

Thanks to all

Another great resource for Lightroom Tutorial is http://www.luminous-landscape.com/index.sh​tml

There is an informative tutorial done by Michael and Jeff. Two parts. Intro and then more advanced.

About 15 or more hours of video tutorial for a very reasonable price.

(Not affiliated, just a happy customer.)

dmward wrote in post #14241975
Another great resource for Lightroom Tutorial is http://www.luminous-landscape.com/index.sh​tml

There is an informative tutorial done by Michael and Jeff. Two parts. Intro and then more advanced.

About 15 or more hours of video tutorial for a very reasonable price.

(Not affiliated, just a happy customer.)

Me too. Recommended.