LR4.1 basics and recommend a tutorial

[icebear]

Hello folks,

like many, I do like shooting but hate editing, as there is no way around that part I upgraded my 10 year old desktop (XP) to a new one running on Windows 7. At the same time I bought LR4 and Elements 10.0.

Already at the very basic step i.e. to import files into LR I can't choose to import ONLY .DNG files. Manually de-selecting all JPG files would be a pain with some 8000 files. I there an easy fix that I was just too blind to see?

I was also tempted to get the Luminous Landscape tutorial for LR4. Does anyone have experience with that or can recommend another one? I don't want to play around with whatever advanced stuff, just optimising exposure, recover highlights and shadows where possible. Optimize the crop and make slight adjustments to print.

Any advice is highly welcome. Thanks a lot for yor input

[StenSture]

Hi Icebear!
Try this one. There is a lot of useful tips and tricks in there. From the very beginning to some wizardry..
Hope you find it useful.
http://www.lightroomforums.net/forum.php

[greyelm]

Is this of any use?

http://shutha.org/lightroom_workflow_lesson_plan

[bugmenot]

I would definitely recommend www.slrlounge.com as a good source of tutorials with video.

[icebear]

StenSture, greyelm and bugmenot
wow, thanks a lot for the quick and helpful links - all bookmarked already. I will dig in later, just a quick look did not yield an immediate solution on how to only import a specific file type but I hope I will get there. There is a lot of useful info there. It definately saved me (so far) from getting the paid LuLa tutorial.
Thanks again for your responses.

[Zonan]

If you have a Mac or iphone/ipad, go to either the App Store (for computer version) or the iTunes app store for the iPad/iphone version, and get the LR4 Retouching app by Serge for $4.99. He also has an excellent CS6 tutorial. I have both- better than the many big books I've bought, tutorials, etc. Best $5 you'll ever spend.

[tstermitz]

I really liked the Luminous Landscape tutorial. It is well-worth the money, and I learned multiple useful tips. I'm an advanced computer user, with many years in that industry. I normally hate video learning and am used to learning via trial & error, Adobe documentation, and google. But, there are so many options and multiple ways of doing things with an advanced package like Lightroom, that I really wanted to get a complete discussion with tips & tricks and best practices from experienced users.

Reichman & Schewe are personable and not full of themselves. They're not afraid to talk about mistakes they've made or false paths. Sometimes they compare different strategies for the same end.

I can list three out of many essential things I've learned from the LuLa video set: Soft Proofiing, Various Catalog Backup strategies, and Local Adjustments. I've changed around a lot of my methods, and am much more confident in my LR usage.

[icebear]

Hi tstermitz,

thanks for your input. As I'm new to LR I wanted to get some useful information before just jumping in and lateron discovering that the was a way smarter way to set things up from the very beginning. I'll check out the site mentioned earlier in the thread and then decide if I'll still go for the LuLa tutorial.

[Lou Iaquinto]

Hi,

I am a beginner who just purchased LR4. Thanks for all the useful info. Much appreciated.

Regards,

Lou