I’ve loved this program since day one when I downloaded the Beta test version. If
you take a lot of photos (digital or other) AND you’d like to be able to find them
again, easily, you need to give this program a try. For a FREE 1 Month trial of Adobe
Lightroom 1.3.1, click here.
My computer crashed before I left for PPCclassroomLive and I was stranded. It took
a month to rebuild my computer, reinstall software and find as much of my data as
possible. “Oh my gosh”, what a hassle. I finally got all the programs loaded and now I’m
back to work.
Just one thing was missing, my Adobe Lightroom. All of my photographs and artwork
live on a portable hard drive and they had all been catalogued in Lightroom for easy
convenient retrieval, when I wanted a picture of clouds, I simply found the category
clouds and retrieved all of my cloud pictures. When I wanted a picture of my grandson, I
clicked on my family category and voila… You get the idea. Well, to say the least, I was
lost.
First of all, I had uploaded my Adobe Creative Suite and it does include a cataloging
program called Adobe Bridge, while Adobe Bridge loaded my photos easily and added
metadata. I just couldn’t get the hang of it. I just couldn’t find anything. Well sure if I
knew what date I took the photo on or which folder I had stored it in… Yikes! No wonder
they developed Lightroom.
The natural flow that I was so used to in Lightroom just wasn’t there.
Did you ever see that commercial for car insurance? Quote, Buy, Print!
Well Lightroom works the same way. Library, Develop, Print (or create Slide Show or
web Gallery). Oh so simple!
LIBRARY – You simply import your photos into the library.
• Just like a real library – file them under author or subject or title or anything else you
like. You create the catalog as you go, this is completely customizable and oh so easy
to re-organize later.
• The cool part is you can file them in as many categories as you like.
• For instance: I often go to Sequoia National Park
o When I import my photos I will include the Sequoia National Park Keyword.
I do this if I know that the keyword is relevant to the majority of photos on the
card.
o Then as I view my photos I will add other keywords to specific photos like
wildflowers, lupine, birds, red-shafted race (a common woodpecker up there),
or Mono rock. I also like to save interesting textures for my photo-composites
so some may be rock wall or redwood bark under a category I’ve named
textures. You get the idea.
o You can include keywords during the import like the example above but if
the card is a big mixture of subjects I leave the import keywords blank. It
eliminates the process of removing un-relevant keywords later.
o Then I select groups of photos or 1 photo and add as many different keywords
as you like. I usually add several so that I can find photos by location, topic,
whatever I might want to look them up by later. There are several ways to
add, delete and change keywords. Check out this article and use as many as
you like or just pick your favorites.
Another great import feature is saving your photo’s in 2 places at once, just in case…
Automatically creating duplicates so you never need to worry about loss.
•
DEVELOP – You can adjust all of your photographs at once, in select groups or one at a
time.
• Non-destructive editing so you never lose the originals
• You can crop them
• You can get the red eye out
• You can turn them into Black & White and increase the contrast like I did with my
foggy morning oaks to increase that coolish chill.
• And Oh-So-Many more development options, for example: if you had your camera
set for a cloudy day and it was sunny, simply chose another camera setting and it
fixes up your photos, adds the sunshine back in, lightens the darks on and on and
on…
• Of course, if you want to take a side track and go into Adobe Photoshop to add an
interesting border or do some photo merge techniques or Adobe Illustrator to include
some vector graphics on your item, it is very simple with the click of a button just
jump into Photoshop, Illustrator, Fireworks, Flash or any other editing program from
here and play.
PRINT – then print on the spot OR make a Slide Show to share with your friends or setup
a customized WEB GALLERY.
Well, as I said. I love my Adobe Lightroom. If you take a lot of photos (digital or other)
AND you’d like to be able to find them again, quickly and easily, you need to give this
program a try.
For a FREE 1 Month trial of Adobe Lightroom 1.3.1, click here.
To Purchase Adobe Lightroom 1.3.1 click here.
