Madrid, Spain: My Lightroom Adventure book has been at the printer for almost two weeks now. For me, the time between a book going to the printer and the time when it is bound and shipped and actually in my hands is always an emotional roller coaster. This has been especially true for this book.

The days after the book shipped to the printer were filled with sheer joy. After a few drinks to toast my editor Colleen Wheeler, and the O’Reilly production team of Ron Bilodeau and Phil Dangle who all worked their butts off to get the book done– I went fishing in the high Norwegian mountains. (See photo below, taken with my favorite point and shoot camera, the Leica D-Lux-3.)

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This weekend trip was followed by the inevitable exhaustion that follows finishing a long project. (By the way, it’s not a good idea to write blogs when you are exhausted…witness how I botched my previous entry.)

Exhaustion was soon replaced with anxiety. Will the printer do a good job? Will readers appreciate all the hard work so many people put into this book? Will they understand how I tried to honor both the art of photography and its technical aspects? Will they find the book useful? Will the book sell? Doubt is a lonely pain.

To get out of this funk, I did what always works: I went back to work. This time it is an update to my Photoshop CS 2 RAW book. I’ve worked exclusively in the Lightroom environment for so long, it felt strange opening my RAW files in Adobe Camera Raw via Bridge. I’ve said this before, but the Photoshop/Camera Raw/Bridge workflow is like an off-road vehicle: even though it’s not the most efficient ride, it’ll get you anywhere you want to go. Sure, Lightroom gets you a lot of places, but speed and efficiently are its primary concerns.

I also started on a new photo project that will illustrate the updated RAW book. I call it, Under the Hood, Working RAW. Here are a couple shots from my first subject, my Citroen car mechanic in Ulefoss, Norway whose job literally gets him under the hood, and gets his hands dirty.

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While I’m here in Spain visiting my wife’s family I hope to find new subjects. I know the project is meant for the Photoshop CS3 RAW book, but I confess…I edited and processed the images in Lightroom. This update may turn out to be harder than I expected…

Oh, as for the doubt thing… I’ve also learned that doubt has a flip side and it’s called faith, which I have plenty of as well.