I am a fan of Lightroom for what I do: manage a library of raw files, edit them and print them one at a time for framing on the wall. I am by no means a power-user, I have learned how to do things that I do commonly with some routine.
Occasionally, I try to use Lightroom for positioning images and text onto pages for printing. "Wait", you say, "there are other Adobe products for doing that". Perhaps so. But why, then, is there a "Book" module in Lightroom?
Today I tried to make a greeting card. Simple stuff. Two images and some text. I want to be able to freely position/resize those two images and a text-box over one or two pages. I believe that Microsoft Word and even Paint will allow me to do so (but without color management and the other photo-centric stuff that I am interested in). I found nothing like that. What I did find was a large list of presets that sort of does what I want, but not quite.
After grumpily accepting the compromises that selecting a preset in the "Book" module lead to, I was confused at the output options. To the right there is a "export to JPEG" button. To the left there is a "export to PDF" button. I want neither, I want to print it. So I go to the print module, Select "Collections->My Greetingcard Book". Guess what, I am redirected to the "Book" module. Grudingly, I export the two book pages as JPEG, then reimport them into Lightroom.
Finally positioning the two images onto a A3+ sheet in the print module is effortless, and I have the print.
Questions:
1. Im I trying to do something that Lightroom was never supposed to do (or even actively limited from doing)?
2. Am I just too UI-challenged to grasp what is a simple thing for the initiated? (I tend to like compact, recyclable concepts, and hate bloated use-once concepts)
3. Am I supposed to RTFM or go watch a Julieanne Kost video, even for such a seemingly basic thing?
4. Am I the only one feeling limited by the Lightroom dependency on templates instead of exposing the parameters directly?
regards
-h