Santa Barbara, CA—Adobe Photoshop is central to most all photography workflows, and Lightroom has been rapidly adopted as well. Each new version of these programs is a milestone in the development of these vital imaging tools, and the 2012 releases are no exception.

Photographers often feel overwhelmed when starting with Photoshop; the sheer number of tools and options make it difficult for the novice. There is no shortage of instructional books, yet very few direct the user to the most significant aspects of the program in a way that reflects a real workflow for the photographer.

In Photoshop CS6 and Lightroom 4 (Rocky Nook, $44.95 USD), Adobe Certified Instructor Stephen Laskevitch has leveraged his experience as a teacher and practitioner to create a guide that provides a clear and effective workflow for editing photographs in Photoshop CS6 and its companions Bridge, Camera Raw, and Lightroom 4. Focusing on the critical elements of a workflow rather than covering every arcane feature, this book is designed to get you working quickly in these applications.

In addition to the essential features of these programs, Laskevitch covers new features specific to the 2012 releases, including:

• Lightroom geocoding
• Photoshop's Blur Gallery (Tilt-Shift, Iris, and Field Blur tools)
• New development controls in Lightroom and Camera Raw
• The Content-aware Move Tool
• Publishing directly to Blurb
• Video
• Adaptive Wide Angle
• Face-Aware Mask Generation
• Intelligent Auto-Correction
• Adobe Camera Raw 7 (new controls)