One more mini-vote for Paint Shop Pro. I use it basically for stuff to be viewed only on the monitor, to which I only make relatively simple edits, no layer stuff. IIRC, it cost me $80. No learning curve to speak of, and I've never looked at the manual, Help is plenty. It certainly covers these needs, and I assume much more.
When my lab goes out of business, I will bite the bullet and purchase/learn photoshop for actual prints.
Just to verify, LightZone by Light Crafts is indeed avaliable for Mac and Windows for $249 (there will also be a new product available in a few days). A fully functioning 30-day demo is downloadable from www.lightcrafts.com. For any questions about LightZone please contact me off-list, or if you post here please let me know so I don't miss it. We also have a free Linux version, which comes with no support but is otherwise fully functional.
The differences between Photoshop and LightZone are many. Photoshop is really a toolbox that can do anything with pixels, whereas LightZone has a limited set of layered photography tools specifically designed to be natural for photographers. LightZone has tight connections to the Zone System. Both products are fully color managed. LightZone always works internally in a 16-bit linear color space. LightZone saves edit parameters and vectors rather than pixel layers, so the edit files will be much smaller. Photoshop gives you complete freedom to do anything to a digital image, but it takes years to master (most people claiming to be PS expers still don't understand color). LightZone takes at most a few hours to really master.
I hope this was not too much of a commercial pitch - I'm not quite sure where to draw the line between pure information and marketing pitch.
Lars Vinberg
Product Manager at Light Crafts, 8x10 shooter
Lightzone looks very interesting, esp. for those of use working on large files from scanned LF images. Does it have something like the healing brush for spotting?
Is the manual online to download separately from the demo? I hate to do an install just to get a look at the manual.
Thanks!
Ed Richards
http://www.epr-art.com
Ed,
Our manual was written for version 1.0 back in September, much has been added since. We now have online help in the product as well as on our website. I have written a short tutorial on contrast control here:
http://www.8x10.se/pages/contrast_control_in_lightzone.htm
There are more tutorials to follow.
If you are using a Mac then there is no installer, just a disk image to open from which you can copy the PDF for the 1.0 manual.
Lars
Thanks, Lars; I for one was glad to read your summary of LightZone, which I had not heard of before.
I appreciate hearing from the company itself, with reliable data, from folks like you, and Bob S., and Paul Droluk.
Thank all of you for your input. When I made the move from medium format to L.F. it was not based on need, but something I wanted. I spent the money. Strange isn't it how the decision of "want" creates expanding "need".
"... and has some advantages over photoshop, including allowing you to view histograms and curves concurrently ..."
this is easily my biggest gripe with photoshop. the curves tool is by far the most important for what i do, but it's been neglected for ages. i'd love it if it included a histogram (like levels) and if you could manipulate the curve itself with illustrator style vector points. the current controlls feel too coarse. sometimes it's hard just to grab a point without moving it.
See? That's exactly what I'm talking about. The issue of color-management excepted (can be a big one if you don't have calibration hardware or the gumption to go through it). There's something that's been in photoshop for a very long time called the "clone tool" which does what the healing brush does - but far, far better. It gives you manual override so you don't obfuscate detail that needs to be there. As for 16 bit color - well, again - another feature that, in my opinion, isn't really needed unless you don't do it right the first time, or you need RADICAL changes. 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. At any rate - I'm not trying to argue the superiority of one over the other here - so much as try to make a compelling argument that an older edition of photoshop, one that can be picked up very cheaply, is still EXTREMELY capable of world class results. The other tine of the argument was simply that a less automated program would probably be better for the newcomer in the long run. That's all.
Jonathan
paul: i'd love it if it included a histogram (like levels) and if you could manipulate the curve itself with illustrator style vector points
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.
On the control granularity issue, I suppose you know what Option-click in the curves grid does. I don't know the PC variant of the command, it's been a while...
Regards,
A Quadra 9500 will run Photoshop 5 just fine, and they are really cheap. Everything that has been introduced since then just adds an extra layer of complexity, so why spend so much money?
Com'on and get real. Your hardware and software need to be from the same generation or a pay a large penalty in speed, stability, and compatitbility. There are literally thousands of improvements between each version of Photoshop. Maybe if you have an old machine around using an ancient version makes sense, but otherwise you're probably asking for more computer hassles than you think.
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