Mastering Lightroom Book One: The Library Module

Mastering Lightroom Book One: The Library Module, my latest ebook, is released today. It’s the first in a series of five ebooks about Lightroom and deals entirely with the Lightroom module. I wrote this ebook because I realised that most photographers concentrate on learning how to use the Develop module, and neglect the others. Even experienced photographers don’t always realise just how much time they can save by learning to use the Library module efficiently. The Library module becomes more and more useful as your collection of images grows. Now that most photographers have owned digital cameras for a number of years, our collection of images is growing. The more images you take, the harder it becomes to keep track of them all. Lightroom’s Library module contains all the tools you need to take control of your photo collection and get it organised in a way that makes sense to you. From importing Raw files all the way through to processing and exporting images, Lightroom sits at the heart of your workflow. Mastering Lightroom Book One: The Library Module shows you how to use it to get organised and save time, which in turn lets you spend more time in the Develop module. What you will learn How Lightroom can help you take control of your photos and get them organised. The important things you need to know before using the Library module for the first time. This section helps you get into the best habits right from the start. The new additions to Lightroom 5 that set it apart from earlier versions of Lightroom. How to organise your Raw files so that it is quick and easy to make regular backups. How to import images and use presets to save you time. Which settings you should use so that Lightroom runs as fast as possible. The benefits of the DNG format and why I recommend that you convert your Raw files to DNG. How the Lightroom Catalog works and why it is such a good way of organising and processing images. What the Grid, Loupe, Compare and Survey views are and how to use them. How to search and organise your images. How to use Collections, Collection Sets and Smart Collections. Why Collections are so important and how you can use them wisely to organise your images and save time. One of the key sections of the ebook shows you how to use Collections to narrow hundreds of photos from a shoot down to a handful of strong images for processing. How to rate images, and use flags and colour labels. What each of the left and right hand panels in the Library module does, and how to use them. How to use the Lightroom Publish Services to export images to your hard drive, or to websites like Flickr, Facebook and 500px. How to use Koken and the Lightroom Publish Services to create your own photography portfolio website.