Taming your Photo Library with Adobe Lightroom

Book excerpt: Today, photo professionals and amateurs alike can quickly amass thousands of photographs. The challenge for photographers at every level is how to keep track of all those photographs. Where do you store them? How do you organize them? How do you find a particular photo when you need it? Adobe Lightroom is the leading solution for photographers’ photo management needs, but its organizational powers come with a learning curve. In this practical and thorough guide, author Rob Sylvan covers everything photographers need to know about photo organization and management using Lightroom. Rob starts by getting you in the Lightroom frame of mind with an explanation of the import process and the relationship between your photos and the Lightroom catalog. Whether you’re starting from scratch or trying to tame an unruly catalog, you’ll find advice on best practices and workflows for reviewing, keywording, collecting, naming, applying metadata, moving, and finding photographs in Lightroom, as well as step-by-step solutions to such common problems as reconnecting missing photographs and restoring order after a catalog disaster. Through straight-to-the-point explanations honed by years on the help desk, Rob demystifies common areas of confusion, from collections to previews to filters and more. You’ll learn how to: Wrap your head around Lightroom catalogs Avoid common mistakes and pitfalls Understand the relationship between the catalog and your photos Be in the driver’s seat for all decisions relating to where your photos are stored Understand the importance of the import process Use Lightroom to keep your photos organized and easily accessible Work with your files on the go with Lightroom Mobile Become your own help desk