On THIS Page I will wite about my experiences with things Any Manner Of LightZone, brought to you by LightCrafts…
POST # 1:
TITLE:
LightCrafts puts together a REAL _PHOTOGRAPHER’S_ Program…
CONTENT:
LightZone is well known in the Linux Community, as an affordable Alternative alternative to Photoshop. That said most say to take it with a grain of salt stating it IS NOT a Photoshop clone or even Knock Off.
That’s where there’s the welcome news!!! It’s a Photographer’s Lighting and Light Manipulation Tool, primarily. At least that’s what I’m discovering while playing with the trial copy on Windows XP, since I destroyed Portage, then broke .:{whimsy}:. completely… so poor me, I’m having to give Gentoo another go round at the installation.
I couldn’t fix it, and I’m glad I borked it for it gave me lots of time to cozy up to LightZone and do some blogging as well as conceptualize about my final projects, since I can’t actually work on them until I rebuild a new .:{whimsy}:. 2.0 to hook up and access my files on the /home partition.
Enough already about my plight! On to the good stuff!!!
LightZone will actually _re-light_ yes, re LIGHT your scene. The algorythms do some neat tricks. There’s so much to check out, I gotta say, borrow a Windows Box or Laptop, download the trial (30-day) and try it out!
When you’re satisfied that it has the goods, plunk down your $199.99 USD to Light Crafts and start reimagining your photographs as if the lighting had been IDEAL.
Only scratching the surface here, but I wish it would mate with DigiKam’s Inpainting feature and Bibble Pro’s plugins… Oh what a Linux dream I will dream…
The proof is in the prints and I’ll post a few in a few days.
EDIT: December 17, 2008:
I’ve become a loyal user, nay, crafter of light… with LightZone 3.6.1 on Linux. Legit As Well. Happily purchased my license…
This Java based application is THE reason to have Java. In fact, it CAUSED me to switch from a Java-free box to a Java-enabled box. I had NO idea that a Java application could be SO GOOD!!!
I’m immensely impressed at the quality of this application. I wish that its UI behaved a little bit more like the GTK+ widget set, but also that the GTK+ widget set behaved and LOOKED more like the LightZone UI (although I would love to theme the color, as I find brown to be so so Ubuntu).
Also while I’m niggling, The print system could be a little less obtuse, as I will explain here: I have to select the appropriate size in the TurboPrint Studio driver config, then pick the appropriate matching size (if available) in the LightZone Print settings config. I wish it would just spool to CUPS if thats an option on the system. I think I’ll go suggest this.
And one last tidbit for the minor cons: the double click speed is quite high for double clicking to enter a directory, although if it’s hilighted you CAN just press the ENTER key, which I use as a workaround…
Guess I’m Slow, or don’t have enough Java running through my veins!!! LOL!!!
On to the positives:
There is the wonderful plethora of relighting options, clarification options, rendition options, as well as black and white, and toning options.
There are also excellent tools for adjusting your image: the “zones” or tones of light with the ZoneMapper tool; the Relight tool; the Sharpen tool (with built in Unsharp Masking (if I believe what my eyes are showing me)); Gaussian Blur tool; HLS (Hue Luminance Saturation) tool; Color Balance tool; Color Temperature (white balance) tool; Color to Greyscale Conversion tool; DeNoising tool; Clone tool; Spot tool; and Red Eye Removal tool.
That’s just the basic tools, NOT the FILTERS!! There’s an impressive array (on the left hand side of the layout) and I’m sure there’ll be more to come with each point release!!
LightZone is an AWESOME, Photographically Inspired Toolset that belongs in every Linux Photograper’s grabbag. They could get away with charging a stiffer fee for their license, but they’re nice folks, and you all should take advantage of that and strike while the iron is HOT baby, yeah!
There isn’t a tool out there like it.
Try it, Read the manual (It’s an easy read).
Play with it.
Make MISTAKES
REMOVE the filters you don’t like
Make MORE Mistakes
ad infinitum
unitl…
…unitl
UNTIL
You Realize you’ve got the hang of this thing called LightZone.
And you Like It.
Then go buy a License.
And Most of All,
HAVE FUN!!!
And, Best in Any Manner Of Things…
-flacvest
