Colleen Wheeler

Biography

Colleen Wheeler is an editor in the Digital Media group at O'Reilly. Her recent projects include Stephen Johnson on Digital Photography, The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers by Peter Krogh, Information Dashboard Design by Stephen Few, and Mikkel Aaland's book on the multimedia, intercontinental experience known as the Photoshop Lightroom Adventure.

Colleen is currently trying to become a late-blooming Adobe InDesign expert, which is having the side-effect of making her a discerning consumer of software instructional material and a better, more compassionate editor. She is a regular contributor to the O'Reilly Digital Media and Inside Lightroom blogs. She considers herself lucky to work with smart, creative, geeky people all day, then go home to her son who shows definite signs of being all of the above

Articles

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Basic Tonal Control in Lightroom 1.1
Publish Date: Aug. 29, 2007Using Lightroom's Develop module, you can do a lot to bring out the best tonal qualities of your images. Lightroom has easy-to-use sliders that allow you to react to the Exposure, Highlight/Shadow, and Brightness/Contrast needs of your images. In this excerpt from Chapter 5 of Photoshop Lightroom Adventure, Mikkel gives you a lushly illustrated overview of how to use the sliders in the Lightroom Develop module to quickly, easily, and satisfyingly make a variety of technical and aesthetic improvements to your photos. The Lightroom 1.1 Develop Module Revealed
Publish Date: Jul. 26, 2007In Lightroom's 1.1 Develop module, you'll find sophisticated yet easy to use tone and color developing controls. Other tools in the Develop module provide basic retouching ability, plus cropping, straightening and more. Our excerpt from Mikkel Aaland's Photoshop Lightroom Adventure provides a guided tour of Lightroom 1.1's shining glory. The Lightroom 1.1 Library Revealed
Publish Date: Jul. 3, 2007In Lightroom's 1.1 Library module, you can edit, rate and sort images, add keywords and perform basic image processing on one or multiple images at the same time. Join us for a quick tour of its key elements, including an explanation of the new "catalogs" (formerly known as libraries) concept. Creating Identity Plates in Lightroom
Publish Date: Mar. 14, 2007You can personalize the Lightroom environment by creating Identity Plates that appear throughout the application for a nice aesthetic touch. They also have very practical purposes as they can be used to identify slideshows, web galleries, and prints. Here’s how to set up an Identity Plate of your own. Organizing the Lightroom Workspace
Publish Date: Feb. 22, 2007The Lightroom workspace is extremely malleable. You can easily enlarge or shrink the various windows to suit your viewing and working preferences, whether you are on a laptop in the field or your cinema display in the studio. In this downloadable PDF excerpt from Photoshop Lightroom Aventure - Mastering Adobe's next-generation tool for digital photographers, Mikkel Aaland takes you on a short Lightroom tour of the workspace. Lightroom Revealed: The Modules
Publish Date: Jan. 30, 2007Lightroom is designed to streamline the process of importing, processing, and sharing your digital images. Although much can be discovered by simply experimenting on your own, there is a lot to the application that doesn't immediately meet the eye. In this first in a series of downloadable PDF excerpts from his book "Photoshop Lightroom Adventure - Mastering Adobe's next-generation tool for digital photographers," Mikkel Aaland gives you a quick overview of each of the modules available in Lightroom 1.0 (Library, Develop, Slideshow, Print, and Web).

Blog

Coming Soon: The Return of DekePod

May 04 2008

Why is this man jumping off the wall? The return of DekePod. I shot this on the set of Deke's soon-to-be-released next installment of DekePod, a podcast from our own Deke McClelland that made its first irreverent appearance a while back to great acclaim. The latest round will feature plenty… read more

Photography Webinar: Five Ways to Impact Your Photos for the Better

April 09 2008

O'Reilly Evangelist Derrick Story brings his popular teaching style to a webcast, where you'll learn five great ways to make your photos stand out. read more

Lightroom Beta Feeback Loop Begins at Photoshop World

April 07 2008

The feedback starts flying, from Orlando, Tasmania, and virtual points in between, as Adobe invites users to download the public beta of Lightroom 2.0. read more

Digital Photography Companion: It's Still a Pocket Guide at Heart

March 12 2008

Derrick's new book is still full of friendly, useful, and fun photography information, and it still comes in a portable package. read more

Using Bridge to View iDisk Contents

March 12 2008

I was pleased to actually find out I could get image previews of the contents of my iDisk folder via Adobe Bridge. read more

Deke Helps Discover New InDesign Secrets

January 15 2008

Deke McClelland joins the InDesign Secrets podcast, and the hosts help untangle some of the knots Deke encountered when creating his latest book in (and about) InDesign. read more

O'Reilly Authors plus Special Guest Rick Smolan at Macworld Event

January 14 2008

O'Reilly authors Mikkel Aaland, Harold Davis, Derrick Story and special guest Rick Smolan will have a panel discussion on digital photography at the SF Apple Store, Wednesday at 4:30. read more

Viewing Subfolder Contents in Adobe Bridge

January 08 2008

Adobe Bridge's Flatten View feature allows you to see all the contents of your subfolders in one window. Here's where to find that handy, if obscure, button in the Filter panel. read more

Beginner's Luck: First Timer's View of PhotoPlus Expo and NYC

October 22 2007

Just back from my first experience of PhotoPlus, and so glad I have been procrastinating on submitting my 2008 travel/conference budget. Now I know that this one goes to the top of the priority list. It seems everyone brings their... read more

Yes, We Still Love ACR

October 18 2007

As we get set to do the final push on Mikkel's Photoshop CS3 RAW book, this news via Adobe's John Nack is certainly timely. Although the ubiquitous Lightroom vs. Aperture debate rages on (and sometimes clouds our perception), turns out... read more

Adding a New Step to My Airport Security Choreography

September 25 2007

I just read Scott Kelby's blog post about having to remove his DSLR from his camera bag when going through airport security in Minneapolis. Got me thinking about the security line dance performance I already do and have worked hard... read more

Beginner's Luck: Customized Postcards On-the-Go with Lightroom

August 15 2007

Despite the raised eyebrows, I insisted on taking my portable 4 x 6 dye-sub printer on my trip to Ireland. You know, I never missed that fourth pair of shoes, especially when I was having fun making personalized postcards with... read more

Beginner's Luck: The Seductive Lure of Lightroom's Develop Module

August 02 2007

Did you ever sit down to diligently apply keywords to your images in Lightroom's Library module, only to be distracted by a particular shot that you just know could really be made fabulous with just a few tweaks in the... read more

The Beauty of Lightroom: the Adventure Begins

July 31 2007

At last, the Photoshop Lightroom Adventure book is here in print. We've been fighting over the copies we have here in Sebastopol. I have a feeling this is one of those books that's going to disappear off the desks of... read more

Photoshop Lightroom Adventure Book Covers Lightroom 1.1

June 26 2007

My favorite thing about the release of Lightroom 1.1? We're going to press this week with Mikkel's beautiful book, Photoshop Lightroom Adventure. And we're doing so knowing that it will be the most up-to-date Lightroom book out there. Over... read more