AAUG Reviews

by Chuck Maas, AAUG Member

This is an initial review of LightZone 3.0, one of the “new breed” of middle-level digital image editing and management software programs designed to be both efficient and effective without breaking the bank or take years to learn. Iíve been working with it for only about three weeks and my sense is that for serious photographers this is a program one ought to really pay attention to. Itís fairly new, and has already gone through several significant iterations, comes from a small but very aggressive internet-based company, and has very lofty intentions; only time will tell whether it is actually a paradigm-shifter or just another capable imaging tool vying for the dollars of picture-taking enthusiasts.

I also recognize that as often is the case with truly elegant designs, there is much more below the surface than is evident at first glance. In this first look Iíll describe what LightZone is intended to accomplish, and make some comparisons with other competing programs in the Mac genre. In follow-on pieces Iíll be digging more deeply to see how LightZone fits, not just in appeal to the masses, but as a specific tool for the advanced photographer in a kitbag of specialized applications.

Businesses aim at markets to make money. Light Crafts believes that among somewhat advanced photographers only 4% own and use Adobe Photoshop, the undisputed industry standard for digital image editing; that leaves another 96% to aim for. The primary reasons they cite for this situation is that Photoshop is very expensive, exceedingly complex, and has a learning curve about as steep as a vertical rock face. Furthermore, by legacy and design, Photoshop retains backward compatible mechanisms for artists, graphic design, and print professionals that often have little to do with today’s photography, and on top of that uses pixel-based mathematical metaphors throughout that demand learning an extensive translation language to use it well.

To overcome these roadblocks, Light Crafts has designed LightZone to be a visually intuitive program that sidesteps (wherever possible) the need to think in terms of pixels. Their aim is to have you work quickly with what you see on your screen to adjust an image to match your best recollection or mental view of the scene when you took it. One of the core tools intended to achieve this goal is called the ZoneMapper. Based conceptually on Ansel Adams Zone System, this feature will appeal to legacy photographers who have used this method of achieving proper image exposure and output, and it works for less experienced photo-makers too by permitting quick tonal adjustments within the image, lightening and darkening areas as needed.

There is much more too, of course. These are the prime features LightZone 3.0 offers through its intelligent tools. For those who shoot digital images in RAW format (and more and more do so to achieve optimum image quality), LightZone RAW editing is done on the fly as the first step in working with an image without actually converting it, saving time and space. All adjustments are done non-destructively via tool stacks and saved to a simple _lzn.jpg file which includes a thumbnail of the image and all the instructions for the adjustments you applied. The Relight tool handles adjustments for contrast that mimic the human visual system in the way itís applied. Selective editing is possible by identifying regions with feathering which can be shaped in any manner. Other tools include white balance, color balance, noise reduction, spotting, cloning, blur, sharpening, black & white conversion, red-eye removal, and an extensive set of “styles” that are essentially preset tool stacks for quickly creating a particular image appearance. Also part of the full program is an image browser, the ability to edit certain metadata fields, and a rating and sorting mechanism that might fill basic asset management needs.

What does LightZone look like? The closest resemblance at this time is to Adobe Lightroom, and currently it will only work on one monitor (some of us like to put Photoshop palettes on a second monitor, using the primary monitor for the largest sized image possible). The image is set against a local dark gray background, and dark gray tool sets are shown against black. The appearance is attractive, easy on the eyes, and quick to get around in.

What’s the direct competition for Mac users? The most obvious are iPhoto and Aperture. A great deal depends on how serious you are about making and working with images and what you want to do with them. For many casual photographers who use a Mac, iPhoto is the near-perfect tool; it’s clever, capable, easy to use, and very forgiving. But you can’t make selective adjustments to your images. You can’t do that with Aperture either, though Aperture moves a quantum step above iPhoto in terms of overall image adjustment capability and asset management. The challenge, I think, will be to get potential customers to take the program for a spin via a free 30-day trial version and experience what it really looks like and how it feels to use it. After all, it’s the visually intuitive nature of this program that is one of its highest objectives and strongest appeals, and the depth of its overall capability will most likely only make a difference to those who also like how it looks and feels.

As I continue to use LightZone 3.0, these are the issues I’ll be most interested in observing: overall quality of image adjustments; faithfulness to industry color calibration standards and processes; proprietary file storage and management within an established backup/archive system; ease of use alongside and compatibility with Adobe Photoshop and iView MediaPro for image production and delivery; and robustness of support. At first blush I’m quite impressed with this program. There’s little doubt one can move from RAW file to optimized image in very short order without resorting to levels graphs, curves charts, and so many other previously required pixel-based tools. Now I want to prove to myself that the glamour is more than skin deep. I hope it is, because I’d like to make LightZone a permanent part of my workflow suite.

Stay tunedÖthere’s more to come.