A Great Lightroom Book, Discovering Lightroom Presets, Etc.

My post last night shared my recent conclusion that I was moving forward using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 as my primary photo management tool after spending the last couple of years using Apple’s Aperture.

One of the most useful resources I’ve found helping me up the learning curve with Lightroom 2 is Mikkel Aaland’s book “Photoshop Lightroom 2 Adventure“. It’s a great book that covers not only all of the functional aspects of Lightroom but also includes a chapter of Lightroom “Develop Recipes” from a number of photographers who accompanied Aaland on a trip to Tasmania in what had to have been one of the ultimate photo shoots!

Another very useful resource for me has been Matt Kloskowski’s Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips blog – and, in particular, the weekly Lightroom presets that he shares. It’s pretty amazing the things you can do with carefully constructed presets in Lightroom – and Matt’s providing a continuous stream of ideas with his weekly collection of presets. Be sure to tuck Matt’s RSS feed into your Google Reader subscription list.

By the way, one major area of advantage that Aperture has over Lightroom is the outstanding series of video tutorials that Apple provides on Aperture. It’s very well organized, they’re very well presented – to the point on each topic. Adobe’s hodge podge collection of Lightroom videos isn’t nearly as effective. They’re longer, more oriented to features vs. Aperture’s task oriented focus, etc. I hope Adobe invests more energy into getting their Lightroom video act pulled together – their superior product deserves a superior video presentation as well.