Tony Northrup's Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5 Video Book: Training for Photographers

12-9-2014Update: all the problems I had yesterday were resolved by the time I woke up. Tony fixed my issue not only for me but for all future readers of his book and sent me an email letting me know. That is five star service and so I've upped my rating to reflect that. I'll also update this review in the upcoming weeks as I digest some more of the content. Thanks Tony!12-8-2014I've been chomping at the bit to learn Lightroom and did a lot of research before buying the Kindle edition of this book. It looked good. I started reading the book and watching the videos and immediately ran into a problem. In the chapter one video on the Library module, Tony asks us to open a sample LR catalog which we are supposed to download from a supplied URL. I tried going to the URL on two separate browsers (Opera and Chrome) and each reported different error messages (Opera's: You tried to access the address (URL goes here), which is currently unavailable. Please make sure that the web address (URL) is correctly spelled and punctuated, then try reloading the page.) and (Chrome's: No data received Unable to load the webpage because the server sent no data.Error code: ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE).Who wants to buy a Lightroom book and then spend time troubleshooting web error messages?I also was told somewhere that there were other downloads I could access if I sent Tony an email with my receipt so I could be registered. I was told that might take a day or two.I am sure all this will be resolved quickly tomorrow and will update this review at that point. However, at this point I'm not pleased.

This is the book you need to understand the power of Lightroom. The author leads you through every aspect of Lightroom, tells you what is usefull--as well as useless--and shows you how to optimize your workflow using Lightroom's features. But the book isn't enough. The real beauty of this thing are the videos. For example, you could read an instruction like "in the DEVELOP module, go to the presets pane and blah blah blah." Well, if you're nrw to Lightroom you may not know how to get to the presets pane let alone which module you're in. By watching the videos, you watch Tony move the cursor around and it locks into your brain where things are. Moreover, (I was hoping I could use that word) when Tony mentions a shortcut, a little pop-up window opens that visually reinforces the shortcuts. Fabulous!This book is one of three Northrup books, "Stunning Digital Photograhy," and "DLSR Buyers Guide" being the other two, that together give you everything you need to hit the ground running with digital photography. As a former technical writer myself, I am very impressed with this series. Tony Northrup breaks it all down and shows you what you need to know. There are all sorts of tips that by themselves are worth the price of these books!

The book arrived on time and is in excellent condition. I havn’t finished reading it though. It’s more of reference book. It says that it comes with video, but I haven’t been able to find, so far.

Concise and fantastic with great videos!Nice step-by-step development and examples including tips and tricks.If you are time compressed, and want to learn light room in two hours, just watch the “development“ video from start to finish. That’s worth about 10 to 20 times the cost of the e-book alone. And you’ll know all you need to know to work on images (minus import and exporting of images).(Note: I personally detest Lightroom’s file management, so I don’t use it. I just pull files from my windows folders, and import them into light room if I want to work on them, then export them as JPEGS or different file types back into my folders )Tony explains the whole file management system well, and it’s benefits, and I’m probably missing something, but I remain not a fan of it. Anyway, got two hours?Great stuff!!!!

This book makes learning Lightroom very straight forward, logical, and user friendly. Tony does a great job of explaining the structure and tools that Lightroom has and he explains how the program thinks. This is very helpful because the program becomes so user friendly and you are able to clearly organize and edit your photographs like a professional.In addition to the book are many hours of videos that I find very helpful to help learn the concepts. Actually seeing Tony demonstrate how to use the program and he explains the different tools and how to use them is very helpful in helping me learn. Also, he gives you many program presets which can be very helpful.I personally appreciate that the author is open to asking what the readers want and he will address the readers needs. Thanks Tony for another great book! I also own his book Stunning Digital Photography which is also exceptional. If you want to become a better photographer you should check out that book.

This book attempts to introduce people to Lightroom and it does a very good job. The explanations are clear and the examples are also appropriate. Given that Lightroom is not very intuitive from a running start, the book helps in simplifying what seems a very complicated application. However, I quit using it largely because of 2 reasons: one, Photoshop CC does everything that Lightroom does by way of post-processing images. Second, I did not want to spend time learning another application when Photoshop met my needs. Having said that, I was impressed with Lightroom's ability to classify images into useful libraries if that is what one needs. For my part, Photoshop CC does all I need. From my limited experience with Lightroom, I would be remiss if I did not recommend it. I know a few photographers who use it to their satisfaction. More power to them!!!

I usually do not write reviews unless something has hugely exceeded my expectations( or hugely disappointed) , I cannot recommend this book enough, I have tried in the past PluralSight for some programming video lessons and it was ok but does not come close to this.To start with Tony is an excellent photographer, excellent instructor and an expert in Lightroom, I am coming from Aperture to Lightroom and did not know much about post-processing even in Aperture I was only using it to organise my JpegsAfter watching only three modules Library, Develop and fixing common problems I can say I am now a Lightroom expert :)- and I realise the huge benefits of shooting in Raw and using a tool like Lightroom to organise and edit my photosVery enjoyable and instructive videos, highly recommended

This is certainly a useful book that gives a good insight into Lightroom (which is not the most logical programme to use - unless you first realise that it is fundamentally a relational database with a few other photographic and publishing elements 'bolted on').It is not as comprehensive as say Scott Kelby's book on the same subject, but in my experience, no single book gives you everything you need, whatever the claims made for it, and different styles suit different readers. For anyone serious about mastering this software, you really need to have several books to hand, and this would certainly be one of them. Hope this helps anyone trying to decide which.

Great book. If like me you need to read as well as watch something to understand then this book will certainly help. It covers all the basics of Lightroom and also gives some in-depth advice too. Video clips are really useful. You can dip in and out and keep referring back. Really helped to get the most out of the programme.

Absolutely first rate. As a newcomer to Lightroom I bought this after reading the reviews,and I'm so glad I did. Tony's videos explain all you need to know to get to grips with this program.They are clear and easy to understand, and I am fast becoming proficient in lightroom without having to resort to any other resource. Ridiculously inexpensive - I'd have happily paid a lot more for this fantastic book.

I'm realy happy with this lightroom 5 book/video publication. I have watched other you-tube camera reviews and instructional videos from Tony and Chelsea and found well presented and very educational. He takes you though all main elements of light room 5, and gives you great short keyboard short cut's which I have found very useful. I still don't use them but I'm working towards. I can recommend this book to anyone who is just starting out with lightroom.