Phosphors

If Lightroom is running a little slow for you, a hardware, preference setting, or workflow change might improve performance.

Check out Lightroom Performance Hints.

The Lightroom team is always looking for specific performance issues and coming up with fixes. The most important performance tip is to check for updates. In Lightroom choose Help > Check for Updates.

This is the time of year many of us think about creating a photo book to give to family and friends. If you are using Lightroom 4, try the Book module to lay out your book and upload it to the Blurb book printing service.

The book module is covered in the Adobe Lightroom 4 Classroom in a Book. Peachpit press has provided the detailed book lesson free on their web site. See Creating a Photo Book in Lightroom 4. You’ll need to follow along using your photos rather that the tutorial files, but you’ll end up with a book of your own. Skip the instructions about importing the tutorial files and put the photos you want to use into a collection.

Tip for tablet users: View the lesson article on your iPad or other tablet device as you follow along in Lightroom.

Video tutorials

If you are looking for a quick start to the Book module, I recommend Julieanne Kost’s video:

Book Module Basics

When you are done with that, Julieanne has 2 more videos on the book module.

Modifying Book Layouts
Advanced Book Features

If you are having trouble getting your web gallery posted from Lightroom, watch this video from Tim Grey. He walks through the Lightroom FTP settings and provides tips on the type of information you’ll need from your internet provider.

Posting a Web Photo Gallery to Your Website

See more free videos from video2brain photography and Lightroom 4 courses.

Peachpit Press posted several free Lightroom 4 articles. Here are a few highlights.

By Dan Moughamian:

• Tips on getting the most out of the new Process Version 2012 image controls.
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1843881

• Learn about new Adjustment brush controls to make corrections to specific areas of a photo.
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1844834

From Martin Evening’s excellent Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Book.

• Importing photos into Lightroom 4.
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1843394

Reading tip: Click the Print button on the article page to display an HTML page that contains the entire article.

Visit the Peachpit Lightroom 4 page for more book excerpts and videos.

If you upgraded to Lightroom 4 and imported some new images, you might be a bit perplexed with the Develop module’s Basic controls. Fill Light, Recovery, and the Brightness sliders are gone.

Here is an explanation in the Lightroom Journal: http://adobe.ly/wMpLrU

Julieanne Kost goes into detail in this video:
http://adobe.ly/x7mwOK

The Lightroom Queen, Victoria Bampton, provides a quick insight in how to think about these new controls:
http://bit.ly/xzlIHU

By the way, if your question is: Where are these new controls? They are right there in the Basic panel, but you need to convert your image to Process Version 2012. Click the ! icon in the lower right of the image area. Julieanne discuss this in her video.

Lightroom 4 is shipping!  Here are some videos to get you going.

What’s New

In-depth look at the new Lightroom 4 features by Julieanne Kost:
http://tv.adobe.com/show/whats-new-in-lightroom-4/

The NAPP overview of Lightroom 4 new features:
http://www.photoshopuser.com/lightroom4

Laura Shoe has a video overview of what is new.
http://laurashoe.com/videos/whats-new-in-lightroom-4/whats-new-in-lightroom-4.html

Laura’s blog is sure to have more info coming.
http://laurashoe.com/

Getting started with Lightroom or need a refresher?

In this series, Julieanne Kost takes you through in-depth tutorials to learn Lightroom 4.
http://tv.adobe.com/show/getting-started-with-adobe-photoshop-lightroom-4/

The official Lightroom Help and Support page
http://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom.html

Got a question? Try asking the Lightroom experts in the Lightroom forum.
http://forums.adobe.com/community/lightroom