Like any well-used application, Lightroom has grown in features and complexity since it was first released. Whether you are new to Lightroom or a seasoned pro, it is essential to have a well-written guide to help you understand how it all fit together. Seán McCormack's latest book The Indispensable Guide to Lightroom CC is just such a guide. Seán has been involved with Lightroom since the beginning and is an excellent contributor to the Lightroom community. His contribution continues with this book.
I enjoyed reading The Indispensable Guide to Lightroom CC. Seán's personality shines through, and you get the feeling of sitting down with a friend who is helping you learn Lightroom. He walks you through each part of Lightroom, step by step. Included are many sidebars with exciting information relevant to the topic at hand.
Especially useful is the information about Lightroom and the cloud. Lightroom has evolved from a local disk bound system to include mobile applications, a web interface, and a strong tie to Adobe's Creative Cloud. Seán takes special care to make sure you understand how all of this fits together.
There is also some excellent coverage of third-party utilities which showcase Lightroom's extensibility and power. And, even though Seán downplays his Lightroom plugins, you should take a look at them. They are useful and well written.
If there is anything negative to be said about this book it has to do with some of the illustrations. This is really a problem with the amount of information Lightroom presets in some of its panels and dialogs making it difficult to reproduce in print. Seán makes an excellent attempt to fit them in the book, but some are just too small to be readable. This is not a problem if you are reading the eBook since it is easy to zoom in on the illustration. It is only an issue in the print version. However, these are few and quickly dealt with.
The Indispensable Guide to Lightroom CC is a beautiful guide to Lightroom. Seán is an excellent writer, and his photography is stunning (well worth the price of admission)!
Check out Seán's book at Rocky Nook. It's definitely worth your time. While you're at it stop by Sean's blog for some exciting Lightroom information.
