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Author Topic: Lightzone  (Read 12531 times)

bob mccarthy

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« on: March 16, 2006, 01:34:21 pm »

Played with a new image editor today going by the name Lightzone.

Parts (zonebox) are not yet intuitive, other features were slick (contrast masking and region mapping).

I stumbled a while but got a super print out of it.

Worth a look.

Saw a discussion a Uwe's site is how I found it.

Worth a look I think,

Bob
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fricc

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« Reply #1 on: March 17, 2006, 03:57:36 am »

Hi,

thanks for the nice words, for those interested in the Philosophical underpinning of LightZone, please check my blog:

    http://fricc.blogspot.com

 - Fabio
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61Dynamic

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« Reply #2 on: March 17, 2006, 12:36:47 pm »

LightZone (LZ) looks like a pretty interesting tool with lots of great potential. I plan on playing around with the demo this weekend. I probably won't buy it though unless I can find a way where it can significantly improve my workflow or at the least not get in the way of it.

I would love to see this as a Light Room add-on though. I am with great certainly going to be using LR in the future and doing adjustments such as what's offered in LZ (regional adjustments) is one of the biggest things I'd love to see added to LR by either Adobe or a third party.
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digitaldog

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« Reply #3 on: March 18, 2006, 01:53:17 pm »

Vers 1.2 was just released yesterday with a pile of new features. Worth checking out. I've got a mini-review coming in the PPA mag (along with Aperture-full review and Lightroom) real soon.
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61Dynamic

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« Reply #4 on: March 18, 2006, 02:36:26 pm »

I tried it a bit this morning and am liking what I see so far. It's quite sluggish and crash prone (4 times in 15 min) and lacks some key items but I do see great potential on this app.

I'm going to get into it more extensively latter today and I'll share my opinions more fully then.
« Last Edit: March 18, 2006, 02:37:40 pm by 61Dynamic »
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fricc

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« Reply #5 on: March 22, 2006, 07:50:32 pm »

I'm preparing a series of tutorials on LightZone,

The first one is based on the Tonality Recovery contest on the Digital Outback Photo web site by Uwe Steinmueller.
 
Uwe thought it would be very educational to show how I did this using LightZone and provided me with the permission to use the demo image. Here it is, I hope you enjoy.

    http://web.mac.com/fabio.riccardi/iWeb/Site/Blog/Blog.html

Regards,

 - Fabio
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Richard Marcellus

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« Reply #6 on: April 01, 2006, 08:41:14 pm »

Andrew's review in PPA has appeared on their web site:
http://bonus.ppmag.com/2006/04/review_light_cr.html

I have also been playing with the program and I agree that it has potential. I really like the way LZ lets you do tone mapping with Zones. The contrast masking seems really good as well. Being able to do a bunch of editing, keep the layers and then only have a raw file + a 100-200kb side-car file is really nice, compared to my normal layered Photoshop files. I would be even happier if this got wrapped into a single .dng file.

Printing is buggy on my PC version, so I haven't been able to test printing directly from within LZ.

One thing I really miss iis PhotoKit Sharpener though. The sharpening within LZ appears to be a simple luminence USM. LZ appears to be written with java modules, so perhaps 3rd party plug-ins would be possible, if the market gets big enough.

Richard
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digitaldog

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« Reply #7 on: April 01, 2006, 08:59:01 pm »

1.3 was released today with a few tweaks (now the thumbnails in the browser and the default rendering in the large edit mode is better). They ARE working on this pup.

You'll have to render the files and bring them into Photoshop for PK sharpening. I agree, their sharpening (like most RAW conveters/global sharpening) is so-so.
« Last Edit: April 01, 2006, 09:01:29 pm by digitaldog »
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sgwrx

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« Reply #8 on: April 15, 2006, 12:39:41 am »

can someone explain how LZ works with color spaces?  if i were to want to use this to open my raw files and then save as TIF, open and print in another application, how is it handled?
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fricc

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« Reply #9 on: April 15, 2006, 01:04:11 am »

Hi,

LightZone processes images in its own internal color space. It is a wide gamut, 16 bit linear color space.

When you export to TIFF, JPEG or PNG you can choose a color space of your fancy for the rendering.

When printing you can choose "Application Managed Colors" and once again choose a color space (for your printer/paper) and a rendering intent. In our tests best results are obtained using a Perceptual rendering intent.

Regards,

 - Fabio

Quote
can someone explain how LZ works with color spaces?  if i were to want to use this to open my raw files and then save as TIF, open and print in another application, how is it handled?
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61Dynamic

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« Reply #10 on: April 15, 2006, 01:38:13 am »

Fabio,
I know Adobe hasn't set any plugin guidelines for Lightroom, but do you have any plans on making plugin version of Lightzone once and if possible?
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fricc

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« Reply #11 on: April 15, 2006, 03:58:29 am »

Check the announcement of LightZone-RT in this forum and in the Lightroom forum, that is as close as you can get with a LightZone plugin for Lightroom. RT allows full non destructive editing using Lightroom or any other app of the kind.

Regards,

 - Fabio

Quote
Fabio,
I know Adobe hasn't set any plugin guidelines for Lightroom, but do you have any plans on making plugin version of Lightzone once and if possible?
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61Dynamic

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« Reply #12 on: April 15, 2006, 04:12:45 pm »

Quote
Check the announcement of LightZone-RT in this forum and in the Lightroom forum, that is as close as you can get with a LightZone plugin for Lightroom. RT allows full non destructive editing using Lightroom or any other app of the kind.

Regards,

 - Fabio
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=62616\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I'm aware of the RT version, but it is a bit convoluted in requiring the edited file to be imported back into LR (according to the release notes - I haven't had any success yet as it crashes every time the save dialog comes up) although I know there isn't much choice at this point in time on how LR "integration" can be implemented.

What I'm really curious about is if you have any intentions in perusing an actual plugin variation of LZ if at all possible once Adobe releases the guidelines on LR plugin creation.
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fricc

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« Reply #13 on: April 16, 2006, 09:16:54 pm »

Sorry for the crash, it is beta software. :-) I'll fix it asap.

Meanwhile to get things top work, In the preference panel choose: "Original Folder" for the "Save to Folder", check also the "LightZone TIFF" option. It saves back on the original TIFF image, it keeps the original and the modified image in the same file.

I'll be updating the release notes and the web site with more examples and use cases in the next few days.

Regards,

 - Fabio

Quote
I'm aware of the RT version, but it is a bit convoluted in requiring the edited file to be imported back into LR (according to the release notes - I haven't had any success yet as it crashes every time the save dialog comes up) although I know there isn't much choice at this point in time on how LR "integration" can be implemented.

What I'm really curious about is if you have any intentions in perusing an actual plugin variation of LZ if at all possible once Adobe releases the guidelines on LR plugin creation.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=62638\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
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mdijb

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« Reply #14 on: April 23, 2006, 02:39:48 pm »

I have downloaded the demo and given it a workout and have the following impressions.

I opened the same image in Lightzone and PS CS2 and did the same image manipulations side-by-side.  I was able to do the same adjustments with either program quite easily.  i do not think this program offers any advantage over using the curves and Shadow/highlight commands in CS2.

What is the most interesting is the ability to adjust zones independently a bit more easily in Lightzone. This software lets you identify and adjust narrow brightness zones, which means it can select and limit changes to narrow zones--a job that is difficult to do in CS2.  The real benefit is the ability to select these narrow zones and change them alone.  Lightzone is making these selections  What a powerful addition to CS2 it would be to have a plug-in that made these narrow selections and then allowed us to apply curves or levels adjustments to them.   The adjustments made by Lightzone are not as powerful as the CS2 adjustments, but the selection ability is the strength of this software in my opinion.

If they provide a plugin that would enable me make the selection of zones like they do--that I would buy in a hurry.

MDIJB
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sgwrx

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« Reply #15 on: April 23, 2006, 04:06:07 pm »

to me, it's very intuitive, has a flatter learning curve than other software. it seems to have everything you need to correct or artistically interpret images. i _fear_ the pen tool and agree the selection tools are great! probably the best i've ever seen. i find i can whip through photos and change adjustments quite quickly.

the latest trial version (1.3.1) has crashed on me twice now though.
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Mark D Segal

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« Reply #16 on: April 23, 2006, 08:45:57 pm »

I seem to recall from a workshop on Light-Room that I attended here in Toronto it includes a curve tool that allows one to adjust luminosity in discrete sections, which makes this process kind of "zonal". Anything that can't use PK Sharpener Pro directly plugged-in and doesn't have a sharpener at least as good (tall order) is off my radar-screen.
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