When Brett Jarnagin and I connected, it was at Photo Plus Expo some years back. The funny thing is, he didn't remember me from way back then. But the guy can be excused because he was manning a busy booth and he must have talked to thousands of other photographers on that day in New York.

Fast forward to just a few weeks back and I came to know that Brett is the brains behind Lightroom Retouching Toolkit. As someone who enjoys working quickly and efficiently on his iMac, I was naturally intrigued about what Brett was promoting.

I wanted to know whether I could work on photographs like I did with Photoshop and his quick answer was, “heck yeah!” That had me 90% there but I wasn't going to be convinced until I started using his Lightroom Retouching Toolkit for my own busy business portrait business in Connecticut.

Let me tell ya, the experience is amazing. Yes, it does take a little effort in learning where some of the buttons are, but once you repeatedly use the interface, you should be all set. As always the more you practice with the presets and settings and dial them to your liking and make the program really do what you want it to do, the better your results are going to be.

I sat down with Brett to talk to him about Lightroom Retouching Toolkit; to better understand why he decided this was a good time to bring this to market and how it has helped him and other photographers in the industry to sail through the dreaded tasking of retouching skin in particular and portraits, in general.

Oh, one more thing. You want to know how generous Brett is? Even before I could say, “hey, can you hook my audience with a discount code,” he sent me a quick text to say that he would be happy to extend a 20% discount code to all of you if you wanted to buy Lightroom Retouching Toolkit today.

Here is the code – TIFFINBOX20 – remember it's 20% off the regular price of Lightroom Retouching Toolkit for fans of Tiffinbox.

And you are a fan, right?

All indications are you use either Photoshop or Lightroom. If you are editing one image at a time, they would both work, but I'll be you use Photoshop. But if being efficient is your goal, you will want to invest in Lightroom.

Like Photoshop, though, Lightroom is getting more and more complex to use. I have to admit I don't use all of its features, though I know I will be a whole lot more efficient if I did.

There are a few resources for you to learn how to use Lightroom to its fullest capacity:

Mastering Lightroom: The Library Module

This is an e-book by fine art photographer and author Andrew Gibson. You can buy Mastering Lightroom: The Library Module from Andrew's website, or here at PhotoDough.com for the next few days for $7. Andrew is well-known for his concise writing and clear teaching style. Learn more about Mastering Lightroom here.

Lightroom 5 Unmasked

Lightroom 5 Unmasked is an e-book by Piet Van den Eynde and distributed by Craft & Vision. It's 356 pages deep. If you are ready to go in for a deep dive, this might be the one you want to consider. If you are still using Lightroom 4, however, you may want to buy this e-book by Piet Van den Eynde instead. Also check out out other ebooks by Piet Van den Eynde here. Either version is $20 each. Both are well-researched, provide interesting case studies and are exquisitely designed with a wonderful array of visual examples.

Adobe Lightroom 5 The Missing FAQ

This tome by Victoria Bampton, an Adobe Community Professional & Certified Expert for Lightroom, is very well regarded in the industry because Victoria constantly finds ways to upgrade it and make it better as Adobe tinkers with the program. If you have a question about Lightroom, this is the go-to-guide for you. It's about $50 for both the e-book and paperback versions. I would get both if I were you. Also, get a flavor of her writing through this free Lightroom 5 Quick Start Guide.

There are obviously other fantastic resources available for learning Lightroom, but I wanted to get these three resources in front of you as they are likely to appeal to someone who wants to get their feet wet in Lightroom quickly.

If you are one of them and you buy any of these e-books, would you please come back here and tell me what you thought of them? Thank you!

An Adobe Community Professional, you can find A.J. posting video tutorials & reviews on his website, when he’s not creating content for Layers Magazine or GeekBeat.TV. This is his second guest blog post for Tiffinbox. Read his first post as well. Then follow him on Twitter.

First, I want to thank Seshu for having me back on his blog. My schedule is such that I really try to make time for these guest articles; it's truly a privilege to contribute to the community.

For today's post I wanted to discuss copyright, and what you're not doing about it. I'm constantly surprised at the number of photographers who don't register their image copyrights. If you consider yourself a professional photographer, act professionally for the sake of your business and register your images. It's easy and affordable ($35), especially when compared to the insane amount of money you spend on your equipment. It can also be done online through the Electronic Copyright Office (eCO).

As I re-read the above paragraph, I can see how I'm coming off a bit harsh. Not my intention, it's just lately I've come across more photographers who have seen their work used by someone else. It's easy for you to register, it's even easier for someone to grab your image and use it. Consider this recent example in which Will King Photography was blatantly ripped off by 367 Media. What I find interesting is the folks that stole Will's images are located in the same geographic area. Usually, when I hear of these cases, they occur in other countries or different states.

In a previous post Seshu suggests you secure your images, and provides a link to David Riecks security page. Those are all good suggestions for discouraging infringement.

Registering your copyright is going to be your go-to solution if infringement happens.

Copyright is a civil matter handled in federal court. Without proper copyright registration you may be entitled to actual damages, e.g., standard licensing fees, profits received from infringement, and little else. You will not receive any statutory damages without proper registration. Considering most photographers reading this are using some sort of DAM (digital asset management) for organizing photos adding registration to your digital workflow wouldn't be too hard. For Lightroom & Photoshop enthusiasts I've recorded two videos on adding metadata to your images. Not only is this a good idea for SEO purposes, it's also a great way to ensure your copyright info is embed in every image you post. Did I mention most thieves are lazy? Yup, you shouldn't be surprised how many times your image is reposted as is, without even a name change, metadata intact.

Lightroom SEO

Photoshop SEO

Here are some additional resources to learn more about copyright registration:

1. The PPA helps photographers educate their customers on why copyright is important.

2. Ken Kaminesky interviews Carolyn Wright aka The Photo Attorney who answers photographers burning copyright questions.

3. Jack Reznicki & Ed Greenberg produced the Photographers Legal Guide on DVD, which you can purchase through Kelby Training.

DISCLAIMER – I am not an attorney, nor is this article to be considered professional legal advice.

Do you copyright your images? Tell us about your process down below! You may want to consider a company like MyOWS to help you copyright and then manage and protect your images.