Spotlight customer reviews:
|
Customer Rating:  
Summary: Not satisfied
Comment: The book leads you through various feature sets of the application, but his direction in getting you there can be tedious and painfully boring. Enough of the jokes - which is about 20% of the book. In some cases, the author spends way too many pages describing a basic process - where as a simple paragraph would suffice. The narrative and screen shots didn't always match what's in his book - he must have wrote it when the application was in the beta stage. This was probably one of first books on this subject matter to hit the market, and at times I felt that this was the author's objective in writing the book. I didn't feel enough emphasis was placed on the workflow process, which was one of the main reasons I purchased the book. The sections on Organization Photos were random exercising in experimenting with the various application features, but the author failed to convey the overall methodologies as to why a person would select a particular approach.
The book is okay, but you might want to keep looking for another one.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Very informative and yet easy reading
Comment: I have watched every free online tutorial and article on Lightroom and still found Scott's book very helpful. Although LR is relatively easy to use, it is a very powerful program once you understand all of it's capabilities.
Although I had a decent understanding of Lightroom prior to reading the book, I still learned at least a few new tricks in every single chapter. Of course, Scott's casual style and sense of humor help you survive the more mundane topics!
Customer Rating:
Summary: It Might Have Been a Great Book
Comment: Much of the material in this book is great and Kelby's breezy style (and insight) can work very well. However, his lame and juvenile humor is often excessive and it detracts very significantly from the book's potential. He needs a better editor. If you do buy this book, be sure to register it with Peachpit Press so that you can get the Lightroom version 1.1 Update Kit; Kelby did a good job with it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Photoshop LightRoom, by Scott Kelby
Comment: PS L/R (Photoshop-LightRoom) by Scott Kelby is all that it was described to be and more. The only glitch was the unavailability of the book initially. That part gone, and now that I have it and have read part of it, it truly Rocks. Scott has an inimitable, informal style which might not be appreciated by some, but it helps make the topic fun, instead of just boring information. The book is written in a straightforward style just as it would flow in real life practice. It is not just information, but presented in a useful and logical manner. I would recommend the book to anyone using or contemplating using Adobe Photoshop LightRoom. No I do not work for Adobe or Scott Kelby. Just my opinion as a former serious amateur photographer who just today retired from full-time employment, and now is going full-time into photography.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Line Out the Useless Information During Your First Read
Comment: I am using this book a lot to learn Lightroom (as I relied upon Kelby's Photoshop CS2 Book in the same teaching format). I learn by repetitiveness. If I don't use a technique more than once or twice, I have to go back and reread the instructions. That's what I like about Kelby's book; it's a how to tutorial-- step by step with recommended settings which I've found to be a good starting point when learning a technique for the first time.
Okay, what don't I like about the book? Kelby has this compulsion for throwing in irrelevant, useless, time consuming, time wasting anecdotal crap. When I'm in a hurry, wading through this useless information is frustrating to the point of exasperation. Here's an example.
I've come to a photo that I need to quickly crop. I go to page 200 in the book an read Step One to see where do I start. I then am forced to read through all of the following garbage in Step One before getting to the point or the information I need. "The photo shown here has a huge problem--the horizon line isn't straight. IN FACT, IT'S SO BAD, WE'D BETTER FIX THIS FIRST (BY THE WAY, DESPITE THE FACT THAT THIS SHOT WAS TAKEN DURING THE TIME FRAME THAT MIGHT BE CONSIDERED BY SOME AS "HAPPY HOUR," I JUST WANT TO SAY FOR THE RECORD, I WAS NOT THE LEAST BIT HAMMERED WHEN I TOOK THIS CROOKED SHOT--IT TAKES MORE THAN SIX OR SEVEN DRINKS I HAD BEFORE I SHOOT THAT CROOKED. OKAY, YOU KNOW I'M KIDDING HERE, RIGHT? GOOD). To be able to straighten your photo, you have to start by clicking on the Crop Overlay button, found on the left side of the toolbar below the Preview area..."
Imagine being intensively focused on your work, looking for quick help on how do something. But, you are forced to take a time out -- to read words that Kelby inserts to stroke his manly drinking abilities -- before learning that you need to find the "Crop Overlay button" in Lightroom.
This is why I only rated this 4 Stars. I depend on this book. It's my bible at times in helping me with my work flow. But, the first time that I read through the book, I used a pen to line through all of the time-wasting irrelevant words that would always slow down my work flow. That way, I can quickly focus on the important information that Kelby does offer.
|
|
|
