Pixiq

 
I guess Adobe never intended it to be so, but the newest version of Lightroom is an easy “poor man’s” tool to make your eBook or printed book. I only wish Adobe would do some more in Lightroom 4.

Believe me, trying to set more than one picture on the same page on the print area on previous versions of Lightroom was an almost impossible experience, unless you’re lucky enough to find a post on the Lightroom Killer Tips website that explained how to change the code – yes, behind the curtains – to get the program doing what you wanted. Or sort of, as it was not perfect. Even the background color of the page could not be changed.

Now comes Lightroom 3, and Adobe includes a Custom Package on the Print module that is intended to let you create different layouts for your pages. The ease to create new page templates and this new option open the doors to a new experience. Suddenly you’re able to create groups of pages that you can save to your computer and, with proper software – Adobe Acrobat – transform into a pdf that is the basis for an eBook or printed book.

Still, Lightroom is not perfect, as there is no way to get text into those pages beyond the copyright line and/or the Identity Plate, both with limitations that don’t make it easy to write notes for different photographs or even full blocks of text. And although some tips surfaced recently on the web about ways to include text, they do not work well, at least for me.

There is a solution, however—though not very elegant, it is good enough. Just save the files as JPEGs and open them into a photo editor (I would say Photoshop CS5 or Elements, since they are from the same family) that lets you insert blocks of text. Remember, it goes without saying—leave space for text on the pages created in Lightroom. The opening and saving of these high resolution JPEG files will not be a concern, since no loss of image quality will show on the final result, even if you’re printing your book.

Following this path is easier for many people than trying inDesign, which is a more professional tool, and will at the same time free you from having to use software that may be cost-free but is usually bound to a printing system. This way you can decide where, if you so desire, to go for printing, or choose to prepare a low resolution PDF as output to distribute electronically.

If someone at Adobe is reading this column, I just hope that for Lightroom 4 they give us a chance to include text where and how we want to. I know that software like Adobe Photoshop Elements has, since version, 7 an option to create books, but as more and more photographers use Lightroom and tend to stay within the program for as much as they can, it would be nice to have a way to do whole pages without having to change programs. And spreads... if we can have them.

One of the best things about Lightroom 3 Custom package is the way it makes book layout accessible to more people.Creating new templates for pages in Lightroom 3 is easy and you can even save them to use in future books. Because, believe me, once you finish your first experience you’ll want to do it again.

Try the program for 30 days if you have not done it before, and you'll be convinced. Look for it at http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/