LightZone- now they tell me

[vicgin]

:mad: Have had nothing but trouble. Even upgraded ram to 3 gig. Won't return the money I spent. Something about the trial period. Like I'm supposed know everything about it before. Sheez!

copied from LZ site:

4. What file types are supported? I have a TIFF that's 300MB, and it takes a long time to load. What's wrong?

LightZone was designed with the digital SLR cameras in mind, and the files generated from them. LightZone will read supported camera RAW files, JPEGs and TIFFs. Large files coming from scanners that are greater than 200MB may cause performance and stability issues.

So I got screwed. Won't whine, but need something.

Can Aperture or Lightroom handle 300mb+ files?
Photoshop trial download sent me to bed with a headache for over a week. Just didn't get it.

Could use some help here. Have IntelMac, epson 3800, and epsonV700. Need simple strong photo editor.

Regards,
Herbert

[bsimison]

Can Aperture or Lightroom handle 300mb+ files?


Lightroom can, technically. I've got large format scans with multiple Photoshop layers that swell the file size to 800MB, sometimes over 1GB. LR can catalog and edit files as long as they are under 10,000 pixels across any dimension. I usually make two copies of my large format scans and stitched panoramas -- one full-res version, and another that is 9,999 pixels wide along the largest axis that can be read and edited by Lightroom.

Jeff Schewe has said that this 10,000 pixel limit is a product of Camera Raw and changing it is pretty far down the priority list.

[Alan Davenport]

Photoshop trial download sent me to bed with a headache for over a week. .... Could use some help here.

Take 2 aspirin, buy one of the multitude of Photoshop tutorial books, and use the right program for the job.

[vicgin]

Alan,

Ok. The 2 aspirin will help. Photoshop can handle the big files? (am scanning 4x5 transp.) Which of the "multitude" of tutorials would you recommend for photographers? I am new to the digital side.

Regards,
Herbert

[Alan Davenport]

Herbert,

Yes, PS will definitely handle the files. I scan 4x5s at 2400dpi giving about a 300MB scan. The layered PSD files usually run around 1.3 GB by the time I'm finished, with some reaching 2 GB. I should note that I also have 2 GB of RAM in my computer and multiple physical hard drives so Photoshop can use a scratch disk that is independent of the program and system storage.

I think a lot of the books out there are very similar. I've used Barry Haynes' "Photoshop Artistry" series and been satisfied with the information there.

[j.e.simmons]

Do you have Leopard? Our graphics guys say the latest upgrade has fixed a couple of things dealing with Photoshop. You may want to investigate.
juan

[Rory_5244]

Hi, Aperture handles my large 8x10 scans without the 10,000 pixel limit of Lightroom. There is a bug, however. Opening PSD files greater than 250MB in size from Aperture for export into Photoshop causes Aperture to quit sometimes. Everything works okay if you do not convert the files from TIFF to PSD. Opening TIFF files for external work in Photoshop has been smooth sailing so far with files upwards of 1.5GB. I don't know if the PSD size problem has been addressed in Aperture 2.0.

[Marko]

Photoshop is definitely not something you can pick up in a couple of weeks, especially if you are "new to the digital side", as you put it. Remember how long it took you to learn the traditional photographic processes? It always takes a serious effort to learn a serious trade. The yahoos out there who keep saying it is "point and click" are either deliberately distorting things or, more likely, don't know what they are talking about. There is also a fair number of people who have learned it so early along in their lives and so long ago that they forgot how steep its learning curve was.

And it only gets steeper with each new version, but it is definitely worth it in the end. Photoshop always was and remains THE image editing program. If you are serious about learning digital image processing, and I really don't see how anybody would or even could not be in this day and age save for a few diehards, you should learn Photoshop before anything else.

[Capocheny]

Herbert,

Have to absolutely agree with Marko's statements... learning P/S definitely involves a steep learning curve AND lots of time!

And, even for folks that have been using the program for a long time... there's always a new/newer technique that comes along.

I'd suggest a book called, "Photoshop for Photographers..."

Cheers

[Paul H]

The latest LightZone handles my 200MB TIFF files no problems at all - this is on an iMac with 3GB RAM. Earlier 3.x versions were much slower.

I actually like LightZone, and use the older Linux version from time to time (just trialling the latest Mac version). Some things I just find easier to do, and in some cases, using LZ has helped me understand how something works in PS.

[vicgin]

Thank you for the reality check about PS. Was in all honesty searching for an easier way. The learning curve for me will be a trudge.

Many thanks for the candor and suggestions. I just love this forum.

Regards
Herbert