Just a quick post – the free PDF extracts and full table of contents for Adobe Lightroom 3 Beta – The Missing FAQ are now online at http://www.lightroomqueen.com/lrqebook3.php.

You can download the beta book today, and get the final release included in the price when version 3 is finally released.  The book’s had a great reception so far!

To coincide with the release of Lightroom 3 Beta, I am proud to announce the release of my new book – Adobe Lightroom 3 – The Missing FAQ – and the rough cut is available for immediate download.

The Lightroom 2 version of the book’s had such great reviews, I had to update it for version 3!

You can pre-order the final Lightroom 3 PDF or paperback, which are due for release at the same time as Lightroom 3 final, and anyone pre-ordering gets immediate access to the PDF rough cut free of charge.

What’s a rough cut?
A rough cut of a book is like a beta version – it’s not finished, but it’s in pretty good shape. I’ve still got lots more to add yet, but just like the beta of the program itself, I’d love to hear your feedback, whether you come across a question that I’ve missed, or something that’s not clear, or you just want to tell me how much you love the book, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

What’s in this new release so far?

• Questions about the new Lightroom 3 features
• Lots of general new Lightroom questions that have appeared on the forums in the last 15 months since Lightroom 2’s release.
• Existing questions have been updated for the changes in Lightroom 3 beta.
• A new page layout which is easier to read, with space in the sidebars for notes.

What’s yet to come?

• No doubt lots more Lightroom 3 questions – I’ll be watching the forums carefully during the beta period to pick up the new questions, and depending on how many there are and the length of the beta period, there may be a rough cut update or two along the way.
• The new Lightroom 3 features in the final release – the beta is far from feature-complete.
• Lots of other general questions – I have a database of 6000 interesting forum threads and complete email conversations I’m still sorting through!
• A full index in the back.
• Anything else you suggest – I’m open to suggestions.

So what are you waiting for?

Pre-order Lightroom 3 PDF version – and get access to the rough cut now – £14.95 (approx. $25 US)*

Pre-order Lightroom 3 Paperback & PDF version – and get access to the rough cut now – £24.95 plus £3.50 shipping (approx. $48 US total)*

* The boring legal blurb – exchange rates are approximate and will be charged by your PayPal or your credit card company.  Payment will be taken at the time of placing the order. Pre-orders can’t be cancelled – but you won’t want to anyway.

Photoshop User Magazine has just published its second set of Lightroom book reviews, and it gave Adobe Lightroom 2 – The Missing FAQ a 5 star review!

Rob Sylvan wrote:

“Being part of the NAPP Help Desk team, I’m very familiar with the types of questions frequently asked by Lightroom users, and I have to tell you that Victoria has solid answers for all of them.  If you’ve ever had a question about some Lightroom quirk, error message, or just how to do something that isn’t as intuitive as it could be, I’d wager it’s explained in a straightforward manner inside this book.  The real strength of this book though is the fact that it was originally developed as an eBook (PDF format) to facilitate quick-and-easy searches of its contents right from your workstation.  You can purchase the eBook alone (which is cheaper) or purchase the printed version and get the eBook for free.  Head over to lightroomqueen.com for the best price and all the answers to your questions.” – 5 stars – Photoshop User Magazine, April 2009

To read the rest of the reviews, head on over to the NAPP website and sign up now.

I’ve had a number of emails in the last couple of days asking if there’s a free update to my version 2 book as Lightroom is now at version 2.2, so let me take this opportunity to clarify…

So far, the Lightroom 2.1 and 2.2 program updates have only fixed bugs and added cameras, and there have been no exciting new features added to add to the book, and the rest of the information is still correct, so there is no update at the moment.

The only main things that have changed:

• The new camera profiles were in beta when the book was written, and are now final.  They’re automatically installed now, but all of the related questions are still correct.
• The resizing algorithm has improved and no longer uses the Lanczos algorithm mentioned in chapter 8, but uses an intelligent bicubic algorithm depending on the original and output sizes.
• CS4 is now out and a dialog has appeared for those still using CS3, which I’ve covered in this blog post: http://www.lightroomqueen.com/blog/2008/12/18/lightroom-22-compatibility-with-cs3/

If Adobe do start adding features, then I will update the version 2 book, and it will be a free update for anyone who already owns it.

An email should go out, but they have a habit of being caught in spam filters.  I’ll also post notification of any updates here on the blog, which you can subscribe to using this link: http://www.lightroomqueen.com/blog/feed/.  If you don’t fancy listening the rest of my ramblings, you can subscribe just to the Book Updates feed using this link: http://www.lightroomqueen.com/blog/category/book-updates/feed/

Obviously version 3 will be a new book, which I’m already busy planning.  If you have any suggestions on improvements, I’d love to hear from you at victoria@victoriabampton.com