Adobe Lightroom – Cool Tools

Photography

Adobe Lightroom

Photo organizing, manipulating

Adobe Lightroom is an imaging software that’s excellent for keeping track of large numbers of photos, and also provides an extensive range of processing and manipulation functions. I’m working on version 2.3 as I write this; the 3.0 beta was just released. The program’s broken into five intuitively designed modules: Library, Develop, Slideshow, Print, Web.

Making web galleries is ridiculously easy, and printing is much more intuitive in Lightroom than Photoshop (at least CS2, my current version). Now that there are graduated filters and advanced cloning/spot removal in Lightroom, I only do really serious retouching in Photoshop. I’m not sure if it’s as useful for processing jpegs as it is RAW files (I don’t shoot jpegs), but the RAW converter is comprehensive and a pleasure to use. The keywording and metadata functions are great for retrieval, and you also have the option of duplicating everything you import from your CF/SD cards onto a second drive for instant backup. It also converts RAW files directly to DNG (best for long-term storage) upon import, if you choose.

Lightroom’s one of my all-time favorite pieces of software. I don’t enjoy the pixel pushing aspect of photography a fraction as much as I enjoy taking pictures, but it’s less painful with Lightroom. I haven’t used its main competitor, Aperture, but have been told by friends who’ve used both that Aperture doesn’t offer image manipulation capabilities on par with Lightroom.

-- Elon Schoenholz 01/6/10

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Hole in the Heart / Hattie & Hudson

Books That Belong On Paper first appeared on the web as Wink Books and was edited by Carla Sinclair. Sign up here to get the issues a week early in your inbox.

A MOVING AND REFRESHINGLY HONEST LOOK AT RAISING A CHILD WITH SPECIAL NEEDS

Hole in the Heart: Bringing Up Beth
by Octavia E. Butler (Author), Damian Duffy (Adapter), John Jennings (Illustrator)
Penn State University Press
2016, 288 pages, 6.8 x 0.8 x 9.5 inches, Paperback

This isn’t an easy read, but it’s an important and memorable one. Hole in the Heart, a memoir about giving birth to a child with Down syndrome, expresses anger, frustration, guilt, and many other parenting emotions. The book is moving and feels searingly honest, for instance when it explores Beaumont’s ambivalence about the outcome of her daughter Beth’s heart surgery. She struggles with the thought that it might not be such a terrible thing if Beth doesn’t make it.

The colors are starkly monochromatic, but Beaumont does expressive, figurative things with them that communicate emotional depths. This includes crying fat tears that threaten to drown her, or showing differences in moods using shadows.

Parents are under such pressure to be perfect, including saying all the right things. It’s brave of Beaumont to give voice to such complicated and difficult feelings in Hole in the Heart.

– Christine Ro

A LITTLE GIRL AND HER COLOSSAL FRIEND TEACH A MONSTER-SIZE LESSON ABOUT PREJUDGING OTHERS

Hattie & Hudson
by Chris Van Dusen
Candlewick Press
2017, 40 pages, 10.1 x 0.4 x 11.7 inches, Hardcover

Hattie & Hudson is a beautiful book in every way. When Hattie McFadden paddles out on the lake one summer morning for her daily dose of exploring, she is so happy, she begins to sing. “So come with me ‘cause there’s room for two, / We’ll be together, you and I. / Out on the lake in my little canoe, / Paddle, just a paddlin’ by.” Her calm, sweet song unexpectedly charms “a monster” at the bottom of the lake who can’t help but respond to the invitation. Though Hattie can see Hudson for who he really is, the townspeople are not so welcoming.

This story is a great in for getting kids talking about everything from persistence to profiling. Concepts of home and belonging, of loud, angry grownups acting out of fear, of power and voice all make it a book that works for many kids, on many levels.

Visually, Hattie & Hudson rivals Chris Van Dusen’s 2009 release, The Circus Ship, in its breathtakingly gorgeous Maine-inspired landscapes and achingly expressive Rockwell-meets-Pixar characters. But where The Circus Ship is silly and bouncy and quick, Hattie & Hudson uses the time (and space) needed to tell the story of a quietly righteous little girl and the power of friendship.

– Mk Smith Despres

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