Lighthroom and CS3

[Jose]

I am less than satisfied with Lightroom because is not user friendly but I can learn to like it if there was a manual. The problem is: "No Manual"--it comes with a 78 pages starter guide only. I love to have a manual so that I can follow it while using the screen and see the changes. I do not particularly care about having to go to the "Help Menu" or to "only line assistance"; it takes me away from my main purpose and the assistance search is time consuming. Yes, there are free tutoring videos from Adobe and NAPP but these do not address all the details.

I just called Adobe and presented my concern and the response is "No Manual"; then I asked about CS3 and again "No Manual". The CS3 upgrade is $200; an increase of $40 since the release of CS2 that came with a manual.

Am I the only one having a problem with this?

[brian.austin]

My CS2 manual is still in its shrinkwrap. I tend to look for aftermarket books.

Select from any of these:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/103-8482485-5227806?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=adobe+lightroom

or similar at your local bookstore.

[Mr. Pickles]

Originally Posted by Jose

I am less than satisfied with Lightroom because is not user friendly but I can learn to like it if there was a manual. The problem is: "No Manual"--it comes with a 78 pages starter guide only.

I have a 122 page Users Guide for Lightroom in PDF, which I am sure is a copy of the Lightroom Help feature.

[TerryM]

the trend in most software now is the third party market. so many books are written, that software mfg's do not bother to do a very good job. One of the best books on Lightroom as well as CS3, "Lightroom for Digital Photographers" by Scott Kelby and "Photoshop CS3 for Digital Photographers" by Scott Kelby. He has plenty of great examples of how to do's with screen shots, easy to follow.

Lightroom has evolved into a great program. You can manage a very large database of images. I do 90% of my work in Lighroom and use CS3 less. But I still use CS3 for finalsharpening and layer work.

You can get these at amazon.

[kevin_c]

I've given up on software companies producing manuals for about the last 10 years - If you are lucky, you get a pdf file of a manual, but usually its just a 'quick start guide' as with Lightroom, which as you say is not that good, although it does give you the basic workflow of the program.

Lightroom and Photoshop CS3 are two differnt programs, although there is a lot of overlap between them.

I tend to use LR as an image database, raw image adjustment program and raw converter.
I use Photoshop (CS2) for any other PP work not covered by LR and also use CS2 for cropping/re-sizing, although you can do this in LR I prefer to use CS2.

There are a lot of third party books out there, and the best ones will have sample exercises to give you a better understanding of the program(s).
You won't learn either of these programs in a day, especially Photoshop, but after a time you will get the hang of them. There is a learning curve and for something like CS3 its pretty steep

[PeterR]

Try this from Luminous Landsape, a 5 hour video tutorial for $14.95

Adobe Lightroom v.1 Tutorial

There is a good CS3 video tutorial as well.

I've got them both, and I can recommend it.

[Jason Cole]

Lightroom Rocks, its worth spending the time to learn how to use it...

What used to take me 5 or 6 hours to edit a wedding is now down in about 1-2 hours and is a much better result.. what did i ever do before

The program is awesome, i would pay five times as much for it and it would still be cheap... love it love it love it .. an NO I dont work for Adobe