![]() With these tools being unique to Lightzone, I want a decent technical reference to explain what they're doing so I can better use them. It should also work as they expect relative to their OS and other programs.ĭocumentation: what documentation? It's rubbish, quite frankly. In my experience, software users will become non-users if they are frustrated by the interface or usability. There are also quite a number of areas where the UI falls down and thus spoils the overall user experience. Right now it's a big issue for me because I need to re-index a huge number of files but I can't be the only one who moves & renames batched of files. That means a lot of manual re-tagging in Lightzone, which is tedious and slow. I'd be happy if such info was in the sidecar metadata but it's not. One thing that the XML gave me the ability to do was to change file references, necessary when moving files around or renaming them. I've got a perfectly good, cross-referenced filing system. I don't use Lightroom or other DAM software. Loss of XML sidecars - I've left this to last deliberately - for me, at present, it is a deal breaker. If I add extras, they get dropped in batch mode. Seems unable to determine in which direction it's free to move.įile renaming - when exporting (batch and single) my index numbers are changed instead of appended. There are also all kinds of arbitrary limits on when it will and will not change the size. Unnecessary and means I'm rotating when I want to crop. Moved from one of the best rotation implementations using a wedge to precisely align verticals/horizontals to something almost completely unusable.Ĭrop - incorporating rotation. Rotate - from powerful, exact tool to arbitrary and imprecise. ![]() here I'm going to focus on lost or missing stuff. Saves the interminable scroll bar work.Īs I'd mentioned before, Lightzone also has a bunch of problems. Zoom drag - a little icon in the corner highlights the zoomed portion and can be quickly dragged around. Return of the progress bar so I can actually tell if it's saving/exporting etc. ![]() Makes for easier tracking of what's been done without clicking through all the tools. Tool displays now have some nice indicators: a marker to show if there are regions applied, little "light-ups" to show if the blending mode or colour mapper has been changed. It's also nice to be able to collapse the panels. ![]() Also means I can set the main window to zoom-fit to actual print size for regular SLR shots which is nice. Variable panel size - enables the Zone map/histo window to be enlarged. it seems that zoom-fit now also a applies a small buffer around the image rather than butting it to the side panels. Zoom buttons - a small thing but it's nice to have the option. So much better than the ill-defined shadow/midtone blending options. Also has a feathering function for the tonal range applied so the results blend in nicely. Just one early use one of my favourite ways to use this is for colourising monochrome by letting the highlights run to white and the shadows to black. Thus, tone compression & mid tone contrast in one.Ĭolour masking - a very powerful control to limit the tonal or colour range over which a tool is applied. It also adds something like hiraloam sharpening for contrast, too. This is a really powerful tool and can, in some instances, replace bracketed and HDR blending. Compared to the ToneMapper, there is much improved shadow lifting together with better highlight recovery. There are things that warrant merit in the new version: Many of my opinions come from that experience. I do a lot of software testing as part of my regular job and work with both development and user communities in that role. I'm trying to be as objective as possible & will give reasoning as to my opinions where appropriate. I'm exclusively a windows user, this is based around my home XP Pro set-up (dual core 3GHZ, 2GB RAM). This is really an upgraders view, rather than a ground-up analysis. I've been a user of Lightzone since about v1.2, and currently use 2.4 as probably my main editor. WARNING: this is a looong post (and taken a week to put together).įollowing my earlier comments on Lightzone 3.1, I've taken a closer look at the new version.Ī bit of preamble first: these are my opinions based on using the tool and my deductions as to things going on.
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