There are a growing number of excellent ways to learn Lightroom these days. There are books, blogs, videos, classes and workshops written, produced, and taught by some really wonderfully gifted people. With great humility I attempt to make my own contributions to helping people learn how to best use this powerful program and to avoid some of the pitfalls along the way. To that end I wanted to create a place that outlined all of the resources that I have been a part of or just think are really excellent in the hopes that perhaps one or more of them may be useful to you. This is not an exhaustive list of every resource out there, just the ones I have contributed to or just absolutely love.

Books

The first book I had the honor to write was Lightroom 2 for Dummies. This book was well reviewed and I am very proud of it. Now that Lightroom 3 has been around for over a year this book is a bit out of date, but the basics of how to use Lightroom, how to avoid certain problems, and how to get the most out of it still apply. The only thing this book lacks are the new features added to Lightroom 3 (the core of the Lightroom 3 upgrade was improvements to the image processing magic under the hood, but there were some cool things such as custom print packages, watermarking, slideshow export as video), which obviously is pretty important. The publisher, Wiley, decided not to update the book for Lightroom 3, but you never know if they’ll change their minds for a future version.

For learning Lightroom 3 there are several books that I recommend to people:

• The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby
• The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 Book: The Complete Guide for Photographers by Martin Evening
• Adobe Lightroom 3 – The Missing FAQ – Real Answers to Real Questions asked by Lightroom Users by Victoria Bampton

What I love about books is that they are organized in a thoughtful manner, written by an expert in the field and then proofread by a team of editors (including technical editors). As much as I love blogging and reading/learning from blog posts you just can’t beat a good old book. Scott Kelby’s book is well suited for people who just want to jump into Lightroom and start using it. Scott steps you through every bit of the program without delving too deeply into the whys and whats-going-on-under-the-hood. If you are more the type of person who likes to have a deeper reference book to guide your progress through the program then Martin Evening’s book might be a better match for you. Martin does step through many features and functions, but he also dives deep.

Now Victoria’s book is an excellent companion to either of the other two books, or stands alone on its own merits. It is just chock full of real answers to real questions people ask all the time. Heck, I even turn to it when I am stumped. Victoria is a tireless problem solver and has racked up so much good karma from helping people on her own time that her aura might just be visible to the naked eye.

Another good companion book I’d mention is Adobe Digital Imaging How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques for Photoshop CS5, Lightroom 3, and Camera Raw 6 by Dan Moughamian. This goes double if you also use Photoshop CS5. You can read my full review for more information.

Videos

Some people learn better by seeing what is happening, and to that end there are some excellent Lightroom 3 videos to choose from. I had the opportunity to create a series of Lightroom 3 videos as a companion to the Lightroom 3 Quick Start Guide. This series is only available as a streaming video from Peachpit.com or their online subscription site Creative Edge, which is just a phenomenal resource for reading books and watching videos online. I’ve bookmarked more books to read on that site than I probably will ever have time to read. You can try Creative Edge free for 10 days too. You can also preview some of my Lightroom 3 videos for free.

Another truly excellent subscription based site for video training is Kelby Training. There is a fantastic section of Lightroom 3 video titles by Matt Kloskowski, RC Concepcion and Scott Kelby which are worth the price of the subscription alone, but then there are hundreds of other video titles on everything from Photoshop to Photography by some of the biggest names in the business. You can give Kelby Training a free trial run too, so check it out.

Another excellent and very in-depth series on Lightroom 3 is the 9 hour series by Jeff Schewe and Michael Reichmann. These guys know the program inside and out (and then some), have a great chemistry between them as instructors and just an excellent job with this series.

There is one more Lightroom 3 video series that I can’t recommend highly enough and that is set by George Jardine. I owe a lot of my early learning about Lightroom to George and his excellent Lightroom podcast series, which is still available for free on iTunes. While some of the Lightroom specific content may be out of date there is still a lot of wonderful content in there, and a great history of Lightroom’s development. That said, George’s most recent video series on Lightroom 3 can be found here:

• Lightroom Library Workflow and Digital Photo Library Management
• Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop Integration
• Adobe Lightroom Video Tutorials – The Develop Module

Classes and Workshops

Sometimes just reading or watching a video is not enough, and that is where classes and workshops come in handy. Workshops and classes can run for a few hours to a few weeks depending on the context and the instructor. Some classes are online and some are in person. We all have different tastes, learning styles, needs, and budgets, so it is great to have so many options to choose from.

I have been teaching a 4 week online Lightroom class that covers topics that pertain to all versions of Lightroom for over a year now at the Perfect Picture School of Photography. My Lightroom class is not a soup to nuts class on every slider and feature of Lightroom. Instead I created a class designed to help people avoid problems and get the most out of their Lightroom experience. This was born from my years of helping people solve problems via the NAPP Help Desk. You can read more about my Lightroom class and sign up for a session if it sounds like a good fit for you.

If you prefer a more in-person learning experience then I suggest checking out one of the 2-day Lightroom Workshops offered by LightroomWorkshops.com. You can find 2-day workshops all over North America, as well as Australia and the UK. I’ve got 5 dates scheduled so far for the remainder of 2011. It would be great to see you in person.

Kelby Training also offers an ongoing series of 1 day seminars on Lightroom (as well as Photoshop and Photography in general).

One more event that is near and dear to my heart is Photoshop World. Photoshop World happens twice a year and I’ve only missed one since 2004. It is several days of Photoshop, Lightroom and Photography training packed into every day, with all the top vendors doing demos on the tradeshow floor, and attended by some of the nicest Photoshop/Lightroom nuts you’d ever want to meet. I guarantee you will have the time of your life. Seriously.

On the subject of Photoshop World I want to talk about the National Association of Photoshop Professionals a bit. I have been a member since 2004 and in 2007 I was hired to be one of their Help Desk Specialists. One of the many benefits of being a NAPP member is unlimited free Help Desk support for Photoshop and Lightroom. For some people this makes the membership worth it alone. Just recently I was hired to be the Help Desk for all of Kelby Training. I also work at Photoshop World, setting up classes behind the scenes as well as teaching on the trade show floor. Needless to say I am well versed in everything NAPP, Photoshop World and Kelby Training has to offer. While I am a big fan of the Help Desk for sure, and I write a Lightroom column for the magazine, I have to say that the NAPP member discounts make it a no brainer for me. You’ll easily recoup the $99 membership fee in a year if you use the discounts and then all the free training, magazine subscription, and unlimited Help Desk support is just gravy.

Blogs and Online Resources

I know there is a growing wealth of blogs and online resources devoted to Lightroom out there. I just want to highlight some of the places I go to hear the latest news or learn a new trick. In no special order:

• Lightroom Journal – the official blog of the Lightroom team
• Lightroom Killer Tips – Matt Kloskowski’s Lightroom blog
• X-Equals – Awesome collection of tutorials and presets
• My Lightroom Twitter List - This is a list of people I maintain who tweet about Lightroom related topics
• Community Powered Support for Lightroom - If you have an unanswered question or a great feature request, bring it there