Photoshop Insider

My original goal was to try and sell 100 books, which would have meant $4,499 would go directly to the building of the orphanage, but I just got the final tally from yesterday sales and you guys bought 236 books, which raised $10,617.64 to help build the orphanage. Amazing!!!!

I’m humbled by your generosity and compassion, and I was so touched by some of the comments you guys posted yesterday, like:

• I am getting it shipped to Scotland, which took the price up to $65.99 - but it is worth it (and that is before I have even read the book!!)
• I already have the book on order with Kelby Training so I’ve mailed a check directly to CMCC today.
• I don’t use Lightroom (yet!) but I’ve ordered a copy anyway.
• Well, I just bought the book and I don’t even have Lightroom.
• I have already had a copy on backorder but I ordered another one for such a great cause. It will make a great present for someone!
• I just canceled an already running order (for a lower price) for this book and ordered it here.
• For the last month I’ve been thinking of pre-ordering this book. But for some reason, due to circumstances the purchase never materialized. Now I know why.
• Now, I’ve ordered the Lr 2.0 book and feel a bit guilty that I’m receiving this autographed title while you donate all your proceeds to this cause, so I also made out a little check to CMCC to help a little bit - it’s not much, but I know the generous and kind nature of NAPP members, I’m sure they’ll all add up.
• I was the photowalk leader in Fresno, CA so I will be getting a copy of the book but purchased another one so that I can help Scott support this effort.
• I’ve been waiting FOREVER for you to release this book! I’m glad I waited until now to buy it.
• Just ordered the book! Already have another one ordered, so I figure someone is getting a nice gift.
• I just ordered two copies. I’m going to keep one for myself, and give the other as a gift
• Oh, and I ordered your new Lightroom book today. I don’t use Lightroom but I figured if you are willing to donate the entire proceeds to this worthy cause, it was the least I could do.

Those are the words of some remarkably caring and giving people. Saying “thanks” is so inadequate for what you all did yesterday, but it’s the only word I have, so….Thanks. Yesterday you made a big difference in the life of some children who really needed us to help. Bless you all.

(Adove: From the Windsor, United Kingdom Photo Walk. Leader: Glyn Dewis)

(Above: From the Chinatown, New York PhotoWalk. Leader: Alessandro M. Rosa)

(Above: From the Portland, Maine PhotoWalk. Leader: Scott Eccleston)

(Above: From the Atlanta, Georgia PhotoWalk: Leader Ken Ross)

(Above: From the Rome, Italy PhotoWalk. Leader: Michael McGuire)

(Above: From the Amsterdam PhotoWalk. Leader: Hans Schachtschabel)

(Above: From the Zürich, Switzerland PhotoWalk. Leader: Axel Len)

(Above: From the Los Angeles, California PhotoWalk. Leader: Janine Smith)

(Above: From the Koloa, Kauai, Hawaii PhotoWalk. Leader Jo Evans).

(Above: From the Alexandria, Virginia PhotoWalk. Leader: Jeff Revell)

(Above: From the Penang, Malaysia PhotoWalk. Leader: Matt Brandon)

Earlier this year, two friends of mine, Joseph and Molly Bail, were so moved by the suffering of homeless children in Kenya, that they walked away from their successful careers, sold their home, their belongings, and moved their family to Kenya to somehow find a way to build an orphanage there.

Well, if you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know that I keep trying to come up with ways to help Joseph and Molly get that orphanage built, and I’ve come up with a way where you can feed your passion for learning Lightroom, and help Joseph and Molly feed and shelter these children who so desperately need our help, at the same time.

For one day—today, Monday, August 25, 2008, if you pre-order my new book, “The Lightroom 2 Book for Digital Photographers” using this special direct link; I will donate 100% of the entire cover price of the book to ‘Springs of Hope, Kenya,’ the non-profit grass-roots group put together by Joseph and Molly to build this orphanage. (This opportunity ends tonight at 12:00 midnight, Eastern Standard Time, U.S.).

I’m not donating just “the profits” from the book, or “a portion of the proceeds” from today’s sales—you pay the cover price for the book, $44.99, and all $44.99 goes directly toward building the orphanage, and feeding these children. So, basically, you and I are in this together, both of us giving to make something special happen in the life of child.

Along with my humble and most heartfelt thanks, I will personally sign your copy of the book, as my way of saying thanks for supporting Joseph, Molly, and the amazing and selfless work they’re doing with homeless and street children in Kenya.

Now, could you buy the book cheaper somewhere else? Absolutely, but when you buy it here today, you’re not just buying a book, you’re feeding and caring for a child that desperately needs your help. No matter what else you do today, you’ll know that you did something that really matters. You gave a hungry child food, and hope.

NOTE: Here’s the link you’ll need to buy the book direct from Kelby Training, so the proceeds go to Joseph and Molly.

If you’d like to learn more about Joseph and Molly’s work, visit http://www.springsofhopekenya.org

IMPORTANT: This opportunity to help out is available only today, Monday, August 25th, 2008. Scott’s book is scheduled for delivery in early September. Not available with any other discounts. As always, Shipping & Handing is extra. Thanks for spreading hope.

Here’s some quick news about the August 23rd Worldwide PhotoWalk to celebrate the release of my new book, The Lightroom 2 Book for Digital Photographers. (Preorder it now from Barnes & Noble or Amazon.com)

• Today is the final day to apply to be a Leader of a PhotoWalk for your city, and after today we won’t be adding any additional cities, so if you wanted to host one—-get right on it.
• I just did an interview about the PhotoWalk with Shawn King of the popular YourMacLife radio show (Shawn and Photoshop World Instructor Lesa Snider are hosting the New York, Greenwich Village walk), and you can listen to it: click here
  (Note: Shawn asks me during the interview where in the world I would like to hold a photowalk if I could do one anywhere, and the answer I gave wound up revealing something very embarrassing about my past. Yikes!).
• We now have more than 200 cities on board (I’ll release the final number of cities on Monday, as we’ll be approving the final group of cities this weekend).
• We’ve added a number of cities this week, all around the world, including:

1. Beijing, China
2. White River Junction, Vermont
3. Coney Island, New York
4. Wellington, New Zealand
5. Cape Town, South Africa
6. Fredericksburg, Virginia
7. Mount Dora, Florida
8. Vienna, Austria
9. Ocean Springs, Mississippi
10. Austin, Texas
11. Los Alamos, New Mexico
12. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
13. Trondheim, Norway
14. Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
15. Deep Creek Lake, Maryland
16. Tel-Aviv, Israel
17. Lake Tahoe, North Shore

If you haven’t signed up to be a part of a walk, make sure you check the current list of cities (click here), and see if there’s one near you. Hope you’ll be able to join the thousands of photographers around the world who have already signed up to be a part of this history-making event!

Since we launched my World Wide Photowalk on Monday, things have been just crazy. We thought it would be popular, but honestly we were unprepared for the avalanche of interest, sign-ups, and people who want to lead Photo Walks in their cities around the world.

We were also flooded with questions, so I thought I’d do a quick Q&A to answer some of the most common questions.

Q. Are more cities being added?
A. Absolutely—so far there are 33 cities, but new ones are being added daily (just yesterday we added Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, and Cincinnati (led by none other than David Ziser himself), along with Manila in the Philippines, Ybor City (Tampa), and Malmo, Sweden, among others.

Q. Are there are lot of cities pending approval?
A. Oh yeah—about 108 more cities so far. We had to add a little more automation to the “becoming a leader” process, and by tomorrow we expect that 40 or 50 of those will be awarded a Photo Walk city, and added to the list shortly thereafter.

Q. Will some big cities have more than walk the same day?
A. Yup. When you see a listed city that’s followed by a name in parenthesis, that usually means there are multiple walks in different areas of the city. For example; New York City (Chinatown). They’ll be other New York locations as well.

Q. Are walks starting to fill up yet?
A. A number of cities are already completely full, and registration is now closed (unless someone else can lead an additional walk in that city).

Q. Have you added any more prizes to the photo contest part?

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OK, now that Lightroom 2, the real final version is now shipping, I can really take a look at how the new version stacks up against my dream “wish list” of features from a blog post I did well before the public beta was released.

Did I get everything on my wish list? No, but of course, I never expected to (that’s why it’s called a “wish list” rather than “a list of demands”).

Now, I was pretty psyched to see a lot of the things on my list did make it into the final shipping version, and of course I was disappointed at the ones I thought for sure would be there but didn’t make the cut.

So, here I’m going to look at what’s hot about about the new Lightroom 2 (and there’s plenty of stuff to be excited about), and what’s not (You knew there was going to be a “what’s not,” right?) Here we go:

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On the heels of Adobe’s release of the shipping version of Lightroom 2, we here at NAPP (the National Assn. of Photoshop Professionals) have launched an all new Lighroom 2 Learning Center, with all new videos hosted by me (Scott Kelby) and Lightroom Killer Tips producer Matt Kloskowski.

Matt and I do an overview of what’s new in Lightroom 2, and we also have created separate video segments for each of the major new features (and a special feature on little improvements and cool little tweaks).

Plus, we did a special bonus video there for people who still say “Isn’t Lighroom just a replacement for the Bridge?” or “I already have the Bridge and Camera Raw, why do I need Lightroom?”

You can check out our all new learning center right here!

News doesn’t get much bigger than this; today Adobe announced that they are now shipping the final version of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 (Whoo Hooo!).

You can read the official press release from Adobe right here.

Check out Adobe’s Lightroom 2 home page at Adobe.com

Congratulations to the Lightroom Team at Adobe for delivering such a kick butt product!!!! I’m psyched!

Adobe announced that Lightroom 2 is shipping today, and today KelbyTraining.com releases two major Lightroom 2 online training sessions;

(1) Lightroom in-depth; a comprehensive 4-1/2 hour online class

(2) The Lightroom 2 Power Session; a quick 2-hour “get up to speed fast on the new LR2 features” online course.

The instructor for both courses is the host of the Lightroom Killer Tips weekly video show, and blog, Matt Kloskowski and one of the leading experts on Lightroom.

The courses are available right now to Kelby Training.com subscribers. If you’re not a subscriber, you can learn more, and sign up right here, and have unlimited access to not only Matt’s new courses, but all the online courses at Kelby Training. 

Here’s a short video clip (which aired on this week’s NAPP TV episode), which gives you a quick look at my Santa Fe Workshop. Click play on the image below to start the video (If you can’t see it, you probably need the latest Flash Player Plugin).