Jeff Revell - Photoshop Lightroom: From Snapshots to Great Shots

From Snapshots to Great Shots

Jeff Revell

Photoshop Lightroom: From Snapshots to Great Shots
Jeff Revell

Peachpit Press
1249 Eighth Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
510/524-2178
510/524-2221 (fax)

Find us on the Web at www.peachpit.com
To report errors, please send a note to
Peachpit Press is a division of Pearson Education.

Copyright 2012 by Peachpit Press

Associate Editor: Valerie Witte
Production Editor: Becky Winter
Developmental Editor: Anne Marie Walker
Copyeditor: Anne Marie Walker
Proofreader: Erfert Fenton
Composition: Danielle Foster
Indexer: Valerie Perry
Cover Image: Jeff Revell
Cover Design: Aren Straiger
Back Cover Author Photo: Scott Kelby

Notice of Rights
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For information on getting permission for reprints and excerpts, contact .

Notice of Liability
The information in this book is distributed on an As Is basis, without warranty. While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of the book, neither the author nor Peachpit shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the instructions contained in this book or by the computer software and hardware products described in it.

Trademarks
Adobe, Photoshop, and Lightroom are registered trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and Peachpit was aware of a trademark claim, the designations appear as requested by the owner of the trademark. All other product names and services identified throughout this book are used in editorial fashion only and for the benefit of such companies with no intention of infringement of the trademark. No such use, or the use of any trade name, is intended to convey endorsement or other affiliation with this book.

ISBN-13: 978-0-321-81962-8
ISBN10: 0-321-81962-4

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed and bound in the United States of America

For all my Snow Clan brothers, Cover me, Im reloading!

I worked with a new team on this book, and I have to say that they did a great job of keeping me on track while letting me do things in my own wacky way. Im not always the easiest person to work with, so I want to thank them for their patience and understanding. Many people are involved in writing a book, but I especially want to thank Valerie Witte, Anne Marie Walker, Becky Winter, and my buddy Ted Waitt. I know there are many others, and even though I may not know you personally, I truly appreciate your efforts.

I also want to thank all of my Clan buddies for helping to keep me sane during this book writing process. If you are wondering what Im talking about, I have a group of friends that play a certain online game on Xbox. We dont necessarily all play at the same time, but when we do get together, its always a blast and a great relief from real-world stress. A special thanks to my buds Scott, Hans, RC, Matt, Pete, Jordan, and my sons, Alex and Matt (Chewy).

Of course, it wouldnt be right if I didnt thank my wonderful family for all their support, not only while Im writing a book, but in every facet of my life. You make each day worth getting out of bed, and I am truly blessed to call you wife, son, daughter, mother, father, brother, sister, niece, and nephew. Your love and support do not go unnoticed.

Ive written quite a few books in the From Snapshots to Great Shots series, and most of them have been about cameras. My philosophy for writing them has been to provide readers with a good foundation for taking great photographs through the application of camera technology and knowledge. Its so important to understand the fundamentals and how to apply them when taking photographs. But is that all there is to making a good image? Well, it used to be.

There was a time when all you could control was the exposure of your film, and everything else was handed off to a photofinisher. It was the photofinishers job to make sure that the film was processed correctly and that everything from that point on was done to produce a decent-looking image. Just how decent depended on who was doing the processing.

Today, you can still drop off your files at the local drugstore and get photos back, but if you want to get great-looking images, you need to take control of that other side of the photography cointhe image processing. Thats why I wrote this book, because showing you how to take a great photo is just part of the equation. To get the most from your photographic efforts, you need to learn how to finish the photo by using software tools like Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.

The old sayingGive a man a fish, feed him today. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for lifeis really not that simple. You have to teach him not only how to catch it, but also how to clean it and cook it. Otherwise, he just has a bunch of fish that he doesnt know what to do with. This book will take you beyond the catching phase. Once you have caught your fish, youll learn how to clean it and cook it, and make it a truly great meal.

I hope Ive given you some clues as to what this book is about, but if you still arent sure, read the following Q&A.

A: Its true that there are a lot of image processing programs on the market to choose from, but I wanted to use a program that had all the power to handle many different image file types, including raw and JPEG. The program also needed enhancement tools that were fairly simple to use but were also very powerful. I also wanted to ensure that there would be image management as well as lots of output options. Photoshop Lightroom has all of these features and more. It has a great image management feature called the Library, and many of the same great tools as its cousin, Adobe Photoshop. Lightroom uses the Adobe Camera Raw engine for complete control over image processing plus some great productivity tools for making books, slide shows, and more.

A: No. The program performs almost identically on either platform. When there is a difference between the keyboard shortcuts, I list the Mac shortcut first, followed by the Windows shortcut in parentheses, like this: To deselect, press Shift+Command+A (Shift+Ctrl+A in Windows). The screen captures in this book were made on my Mac, using the OS X Lion operating system, so you might see some aesthetic differences (buttons, cursors, and the like), but overall the program interface should look almost identical.

A: Not at all. Notice that there is no version number on the front of this book. The reason is that most of the tasks youll be doing will be general in nature and use the same tools that have been available in previous versions of Lightroom. Ive tried to focus on the basics of image processing, so I address color correction, cropping, exposure adjustments, sharpening, and so on. The tools to perform these operations have changed little over the years and will still be available in future versions as well. They are the core elements of image processing, and just like f-stops and shutter speeds, they will probably change very little in the future. I do my best to point out where there are differences as well as when some features are not in earlier versions so you can just skip ahead.