LightRoom...HELP!

[canon23]

Thank you all for your much helpful references and inputs!!!  I started clicking on some of your recommended links and read the reviews for the recommended authors on Lr 4...I find them very helpful and am confident they will be more than enough for  me to start my path to learning Lr 4 as a beginner.  I'm so excited!  Thanks again...I really do appreciate all the helpful hands!

[nonac]

When I first got Lightroom and Photoshop, I bought several books including Kelby's and Ewings. However, I learned more from a DVD tutorial I bought. It is a series titled "Learn by Video" and is available for LE and PS.  Kelbys book just tells you what to do for which you don't learn much from that. With the DVD it allows you to do a split screen and actually practice what they are teaching you as you watch it. Much, much better than any book I have bought.

[Jettatore]

Lynda.com has training videos for both, and are most probably 100x better than anything that has been mentioned here so far unless you absolutely need the afk convenience of a book.  If you can't afford Lynda, then just go on youtube and do searches there for each software (plus words like, learn, training, tutorial) the free stuff on youtube can be quite good and you can just as easily make do with it.

[dturano]

If lr4 perfected the coffee tab from beta I'm switching from aperture   

[RC]

 A couple more that I like:

Adobe's Julieanne Kost's excellent videos
http://tv.adobe.com/show/adobe-evangelists-julieanne-kost/

Scott Kelby's book "The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Book for Digital Photographers"
http://www.amazon.com/Photoshop-Lightroom-Digital-Photographers-Voices/dp/0321819586/ref=sr_1_sc_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1340550255&sr=8-3-spell&keywords=scott+kerby+lightroom

[pdirestajr]

+1 for Lynda.com

A great resource with tons of content. Even a handy app so you can watch tuts on the can! Haha.

[dirtcastle]

+1 for Lynda.com

Lightroom can be difficult to learn. The develop tools are relatively straightforward. But Lightroom is fundamentally a workflow program... and that's where much of the difficult learning is.

[papa-razzi]

Lynda.com - a couple of good tutorials.  Try Jan Kabil.  Chris Orwig is a little long winded, but ultimately goes into more depth.

I have the Scott Kelby Lightroom 3 book, and it is very good.  Simple, how to get the job done, with lots of little tips and insight.  Not a lot of theory and background on how the database works, etc, but very practical usable advice to get you going.

Adobe TV has a really good video on how the database is structured.

Good luck!

[DianeK]

Another lynda.com fan here.  I started with Scott Kelby's LR3 book simply because I like having a book at my fingertips and he really does a good job keeping you from getting overwhelmed.  Then when I felt reasonably comfortable I started more in-depth training with tutorials on lynda.com.  I have also found lynda.com a life-safer for Photoshop.  But I still find myself reaching for Kelby's book from time to time when I forget how to do something.

Take comfort in the knowledge that we have all, at some point, been on the daunting threshold of learning LR and have survived.  Kelby's book truly kept me from sinking into despair at the very beginning 

Diane

[ScottyP]

Import your RAWs in the library tab.

Develop in the develop tab.

Right click and export your RAWs as any file you'd like.

Simple enough?

And that's helpful how?  I'm pretty sure there's more to the "develop" part unless I've been doing something completely wrong all these years.

I'm absolute that you would know that it is that simple. Import, develop and export? What else? Make a cup of coffee tab?

You're right.  Just hit the develop button and out pops a perfect photo.  So simple.

I don't question a persons developing methods. Lightroom works in import, develop, and export. Yes, its that simple.

Very simple, and also inspiring.  I feel quite confident now that I can fly a plane.  Only 3 steps to quickly memorize:  Get in plane, fly to where you want to go without crashing, land plane and get out.

[lonelywhitelights]

The best advice I can give is trial and error!

mess around, explore everything.

Don't limit yourself to tutorial videos

I find books to be the other best source of learning - also cheaper than extortionate photoshop/lightroom short-courses which you can study online etc - they're a waste of time

[wickidwombat]

http://www.amazon.com/Photoshop-Lightroom-Digital-Photographers-Voices/dp/0321819586/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1340577417&sr=8-7&keywords=scott+kelby

Here you go get this book, it is basically all you need it will teach you everything right from the very begining

[ramon123]

You need to sit down and mess around on the program until you pretty much work most things out. Most people who have "made it" sat down and taught themselves!

Good luck.