LightZone

[joneil]

Does anybody here use LightZone?  Here's the URL
http://www.lightcrafts.com/lightzone/

    Here's my situation.   I have a fully registered and legal copy of both PS Elements and Corel Paint Shop Pro, and for me,  Corel does 99.9% of what I need done.  I know some of you guys need a full version of PS for what you need to do, and that's cool, but my mileage is different than yours.  

   I also use some other registered Adobe products - Pagemaker - now using InDesign - since the days of Win 3.1, but judge me as you will, I've never had the need to spend the money to jump to a full CS4 suite.  So I am not here to knock Adobe or PS in any way.    Also, and yes I ahve asked and checked, there's no discount upgrade for full fledged PS if you are just an InDesign user, and even if there was, PS does not run on linux.  

 My specific reason for looking at LightZone is it is cross platform - Mac, XP and Linux versions.   For details too long to go into here, that's what I need at the moment, a decent program that works on different platforms.

   For example, I really like Wacom tablets, because they work great under both XP and Linux.    I have a Wacom on linux right at this very moment.

   Now before I barraged, yes, I know the GIMP works cross platform, and yes, I have GIMP installed, no I don't like it.   Sorry if I hurt feelings, but no, the GIMP just ain't the answer for me.   These things happen.  

 So does anybody here actually use LightZone on any platform, and what do you think of it?

thanks much ahead of time
joe

[BernardLanguillier]

So does anybody here actually use LightZone on any platform, and what do you think of it?

Cool piece software that I use on and off, but I know some people who really swear by it. The approach is very photography friendly and it does something like overall tone balancing and B&W conversion well.

The software has not been updated much recently though.

Cheers,
Bernard

[howardm]

if you download the demo, be prepared to receive quite a few emails offering something like 25% off on the purchase.

I tried it but after purchasing a raft of other s/w (PS, LR, PM), I didn't see a need but then again, I'm not trying to go cross-platform.

[tonysmith]

I have it and use it sometimes. Yes, it is a cool software and allows some quite sophisticated adjustments. I also found that, like some HDR softwares, it can easily lead to overdoing things. You might want to look here: http://www.outbackphoto.com/artofraw/raw_30/essay.html

[JeffKohn]

I own Lightzone Basic (the more expensive version doesn't offer much to justify its higher price except for some batching capabilities that don't really fit with how I use the application). Pretty much every monochrome image I edit makes a trip through Lightzone. It can be useful for color images as well, but is better suited to monochrome work for me, because making big tonal changes in Lightzone will tend to affect the colors in adverse ways (though sometimes I'll take the result from Lightzone and layer it on top of the original color image in Luminosity blend mode in Photoshop). Lightzone edits are non-destructive, everything is essentially an adjustment layer in Photoshop terms (even cropping).

I only use two of the tools in Lightzone: 'Relight' and 'ZoneMapper'. These tools are very useful for tonal manipulations, giving you a lot more control than curves adjustments in a traditional image editing application (and with a more intuitive interface). Lightzone uses 'region-based' masks, which take a bit of getting used to but can be very effective for local adjustments as they seem to handle the transition from masked to not-masked very well.

Although it's marketed as a full-featured imaged-editing solution, IMHO it falls short of that. It does some things very well, but I could never use it as a complete replacement for Photoshop. The RAW converter and some of the other features are pretty primitive.  The file browser is also pretty klunky (and can't even build previews for large LZN-edited files).

The biggest downside to Lightzone is that it's written in Java. Some people might like that it's cross-platform, but the fact is Lightzone can be very slow, especially with large images.  For the most part editing 12mp images is fine, but editing larger panos can be pretty painful, especially once you add a lot of adjustments. In addition to being slow I"ve occasionally had it crash on me when working with a large image with lots of adjustments (I've found you have to be very careful about using the 'history' states in these situations). The fact that LZ can only use 1500MB or so of  RAM doesn't help, I'm sure a 64-bit version that could use more memory would help.

Although I sometimes find it useful for color work, I'm not sure I could recommend it for that alone given its price and the fact that you're probably still going to need another image editor. But if you do a lot of monochrome work I highly recommend it.

[feppe]

While I'm quite proficient in both PS and LR, I fell in love with LightZone's Zonemapper when I demoed it two or so years ago. I would pay quite a bit of money to see it as a plugin in PS or LR - it is lightyears ahead in usability and intuitiveness to curves.

Also, I liked LightZone's way of stacking the filters, which again is much more intuitive than how LR's UI.

Nevertheless, I don't want another software in my workflow, and since I get along with LR and PS just fine I'm not using LZ anymore. But please, oh please, make ZoneMapper as a plugin for PS!

[kal]

I use it (actually an old 2.something version, on Linux) and love it. The zone mapper tool is simply great, as is the relight (tone mapper in older version). However LZ is not a photo editor, as someone already said. Also, the idea of region-based editing is cool, but simply doesn't work for some tools, e.g. the (really irritating) implementation of the clone brush...

[joneil]

Hi everyone;

                Thanks for the replies.  I am waiting for my "25% off " e-mail to arrive someday.     I got a hold of the older, Ver 2 something linux version because it was / is freeware, and I am playing around with it.   It's nice so far.

     As for my needs, yes, I do a lot of monochrome work, and most of the images i need to work with are small at this time.   One of these day's I'll get a proper scanner for my 4x5 film, and at that point, I'll get the full blown PS and from what i have personally seen, a top of the line Mac Pro.  My friend's MacBook Pro runs Windows apps faster than most dedicated Win machines that i have seen.

   The other thing I failed to mention was I have a new Netbook with the Atom processor.  Don't buy one of these if your needs are any kind of long term, serious image processing, but I bought it for other uses, but as an afterthought, the ability to occasionally do some minor editing on the fly is handy to have.   I'm going to try and see if LightZone will run not half bad on it.

  I'll give you all one specific use for LightZone and my netbook or even back at home, that I was looking for, and it may sound kinda strange, but hee goes.

   I do a lot of historical research.  One of the best ways to bring out "lost" detail in old original documents, photographs - and yes, even old gravestones in cemeteries - is to photograph them in different lights, angles, etc, then in some program such as PS or  Paint Shop Pro or  LightZone, whatever your choice of program is, manipulate the image to bring out lost detail  

    Therefore, my primary need is NOT for art, but for information.

   NO criticism intended at all here, but one primary issue I have is many, if not most photographic forums and mailing lists are directed at the artistic end result of the final image, be it film, digital or a combination of technologies.  You want the end result to be asthetically pleasing.  Or, as the man once said, "well no shit Sherlock."  

   Even astro-photography mailing lists and forums are dedicated to the final result being pleasing to the eye for the most part.

   When I am photographing an old map or tombstone, digitally speaking, I am ripping that image apart to shreds to reveal every little bit of information I can, information that may not be readily seen by the naked eye.  So my "end results" that give up the information I am looking for, from a purely artistic point of view, look like a pile of vomit.  But it does what I need, and the original document is completely untouched, just it's "avatar" is a complete mess.

   So that's one main reason I need good, cross platform image editor.   Even companies such as Adobe do not design PS or Lightrooom with the needs of historians or archivists  in mind, and why should they, I suspect that such sales would account for less than 1% of the current market.   So a lot of what I get is from genealogival web sites and mailing lists, and related historical sites.   But the double edged sword is that most genealogists are always  not  good photographers, film or digital.  

Will let you people all know someday down the road how it works for me


so agian to all of you, thanks much, I do appreciate it
joe