photo editing programs

[robc]

Lars,

Just had quick look at Lightzone so I haven't formed any opinions yet except that the very first thing I wanted to do was to import a .psd file cos thats how all my images are currently saved. Any plans for an import facility for .psd files even if it has to flatten them?

[paulr]

"Paul, you can have curves and histogram at the same time in Photoshop, at least in CS2. If you go to Window menu and click on Histogram, it will open a Histogram panel in the same group as Navigator and Info. All you have to do is put the focus on it."

sure, but you don't get the kind of real-time interraction between the histogram and the tool that you do with the levels tool, for example. that's the kind of integration i'd love to see.

[Lars Åke Vinberg]

rob,

We do have plans for PSD support, but it's not in the pipeline yet as we originallly envisioned LightZone as a Photoshop replacement. How vital do you feel that this is? It would allow for a tighter Photoshop integration, I guess?

BTW, this thread is deteriorating into multiple parallel discussions - feel free to start a new thread regarding LightZone.

Lars

[paulr]

"Working in eight bit LAB space is already superior to 12 or 16 bit color spaces anyway. Neither lightjet nor web reproduction is able to discern beyond eight bits of RGB. So - while there are NICETIES involved in later photoshop editions - I find that their sluggishness and overload of bric-a-brac too much of a turn off."

I'mnot at all convinced 8 bit lab is superior to 16 bit color spaces. I don't know too many people who edit in LAB at all anymore. There was once a notion that conversions to LAB were lossless, but this has been shown to not be true. It has quite a few weaknesses as an editing space, and only a couple of substantial strengths. It's also not applicable to black and white, where 16 bit grayscale is the preferable mode.

Lack of 16 bit output is really beside the point. Working in a higher bit space is about preserving information. For the same reasons, audio is almost always editied in 24 and 32 bit word lengths now, even if the only planned output is 16 bit cd. It makes a significant difference any time a lot of tonal adjustment is being made.

[Kirk Gittings]

Paul is bang on about making tonal adjustments in 16 bit regardless of output. His point is also supported by most PS book authors also.

[robc]

Lars,
I couldn't say with any certainty for other people but the ability to import other formats removes at least one barrier from people considering a switch from one program to another without them having to export to a format which is common to both programs.

I wanted the import simply because I was interested in seeing how it worked. If I had started with LZ it wouldn't be necessary and is not strictly necessary for me since I can save as a tiff or jpeg if I want and then open in LZ.

[Jonathan_6488]

And yes, well, it IS absolutely critical to get that new Hummer H2 to pick up the kids from soccer. It has superior specifications to that old Taurus. So - what you're saying is that anyone whose done any prepress or fine art work using photoshop pre-CS or NOT in 16 bit per channel color has produced something compromised...?? Who's going to tell all those (previously thought of as brilliant) people? I'm disappointed in you folks. By your own argument, you should all dump your film equipment and use digital since film uses a one-bit color space (just dithering on a massive scale) since it's obviously inferior.

This is not about what is supposed to be 'superior' or 'high end' - but how can you get started doing high quality image editing below, say $100. Sure CS2 is fine and nice. If you upgrade all your equipment at the same time. I have an ancient G3 using OS9/PS4 with a SCSI disk array that just BLOWS my new 3MHz Dell at work out of the water. I can fly around 200 MB files like they were NTSC format jpeg files - while the beast at work positively CHOKES on a 30MB file using CS2. I think people make the assumption that newer and more expensive and more MHz always equals better. That ain't necessarily true. Leaner and better written software with less system overhead equals better IMHO. Anyway - I give up... exasperated. I was just trying to help.

[David Luttmann]

Jonathan,

Your misinformation is hardly a help. I'll make a list of problems with your comments:

1) No such thing as NTSC JPG format. JPG is JPG.

2) Editing in LAB is a destructive conversion process. In 8 bit mode, you will loss approx 10% of your tonal information on the conversion from RGB to LAB & back.

3) NO authority on printing or workflow would support your arguments in favor of 8 bit processing being equal. It is ALWAYS better to make ANY adjustments in 16 bit mode in order to preserve all the subtle information. Any changes you make are cumulative in nature....not just changes to density.

4) Film is 1 bit in nature with dithering???? I won't even bother addressing this ridiculous statement.

5) Assuming you don't have a 3Ghz Dell with 64mb of RAM, there is NO WAY your Dell will choke on a 30mb file. A 3Ghz Dell with a gig of ram will run circles around your old G3 with the same memory.

6) You old Photoshop versions don't support a lot of the 16 bit functions that are necessary to maintain a decent image.

7) Yes, I'd say anyone doing fine art printing in 8 bit mode has comprimised their work. I have yet to see high quality printing examples that supported your views that 8 bit & 16 bit processing routines are equal.

8) Lightjet or web does not need to display more than 8 bit. But by starting in 8 bit mode, and converting to LAB, and making adjustments from there, you are no longer left with the full 8 bits....you have lost tonal information. Thus, starting out with 16, making adustments that leave you with 14 for example, means you still have a clean amount to convert to 8 bit. This isn't difficult to understand.

9) On average, the healing brush is far easier to use than the cloning tool for removing blemishes on your scans...ie; sky areas.

So Jonathan, don't get upset with everyone for pointing out your mistakes. Unfortunately, your help is actually a hinderance when you throw around processing comments that in fact are just not true.

Regards,

[Giacomo GIRINO]

I hope this thread won’t take the flames bend as others did.

I’m no authority on the subject but I thought the “one-bit-with-dithering nature of film” was a nicely fitting metaphor. Actually more than a metaphor: aren’t those halides (or whatever their analogues in colour photography) either ‘on’ or ‘off’ after all? and being how they stack up that gives saturation?

A question on printers: aren't there any that work with more that 8 bits in input? (the Lambda is 9 bits internally although only 8 in input)

Please don’t strike too hard, regards,

Lino

[Marko]

Lino: I’m no authority on the subject but I thought the “one-bit-with-dithering nature of film” was a nicely fitting metaphor. Actually more than a metaphor: aren’t those halides (or whatever their analogues in colour photography) either ‘on’ or ‘off’ after all?

Evidently, the great majority of us here aren't real authorities on this subject either.

To answer your question directly, if those halides and pigments were indeed either on or off, as you put it, we wouldn't have "analog photography", would we? Nor would we have any grays either, everything would be either pure black or pure white, a perfect litho. And photography would actually be photographics.

One-bit-dithering metaphore is, excuse my bluntness, a complete nonsense. For starters, those silver particles would all have to be exactly the same size and shape in order to be considered "bits". And they aren't, they are anything but.

Then the "dithering" part - just look up the actual meaning of the term and you'll instantly see why it is yet another nonsense. What causes shades and saturation is diffraction and dispersion influenced by the size and density of those particles, as well as shape. (Speaking of bits, abstract numerical entities that they are, they are not supposed to have shape either, are they?)

Dave is absolutely right on this, and "1-bit with dithering" part is only one of the several concepts that the original poster seems to be confused about, NTSC JPG being a very visible example.

I'm sorry to say, but "quality image editing" and "cheap" are mutually exclusive terms. It's just not done. Image editing is one of those trades where results actually directly depend on the tools used.

All being said, I am not an expert either. This is only my opinion, not necessarily the facts. I tried to make it as educated an opinion as I could, though.

Regards,