Posted by David Prichard on September 18, 2007 at 2:16 PM
In a burst of surfing I came across a company I hadn't heard of and their product Light Zone. The site videos are impressive but I'd be curious as to the opinions of those who may have tried it.
Posted by Outdoor Lens on September 19, 2007 at 7:39 AM
I gave the program a try a while back. I'll be the first to admit that I didn't spend as much time with it as a true reviewer should. My main stumbling block was that it "isn't Photoshop". After years of becoming familiar with Photoshop it's hard to switch to a new way of thinking. I, like you, thought that the instructional material was impressive though.
Posted by Brad Hill on September 24, 2007 at 4:56 PM
Hi Dave,
I've been using LightZone in conjunction with Photoshop for at least 6 months. I don't use it as a RAW converter (I use PhaseOne's Capture 1 Pro) for reasons I won't get in to here. I find the product is a very good compliment to Photoshop - I like the Zone System approach to controlling tonality. I haven't found a single thing in it I can't replicate in Photoshop (sometimes with a lot of work), but I use it because:
1. It is a very intuitive way to control tones in an image
2. It really focuses my attention to the importance of tonality in an image (I notice things when I'm using it that I would definitely miss if I used Photoshop alone).
Bottom line: I would never recommend that someone should buy this product INSTEAD of Photoshop. However, if you want your images to look their best, it can be used as an effective complimentary tool to Photoshop.
Many of the images on my website were improved (in my opinion) by LightZone - feel free to check them out (you'll have to check under the "Behind the Computer" tab on individual images to see if I used LightZone on a particular image).
Feel free to contact me if you have any other questions about the product...
Discussion
2 replieshttp://www.lightcrafts.com/index.html
I've been using LightZone in conjunction with Photoshop for at least 6 months. I don't use it as a RAW converter (I use PhaseOne's Capture 1 Pro) for reasons I won't get in to here. I find the product is a very good compliment to Photoshop - I like the Zone System approach to controlling tonality. I haven't found a single thing in it I can't replicate in Photoshop (sometimes with a lot of work), but I use it because:
1. It is a very intuitive way to control tones in an image
2. It really focuses my attention to the importance of tonality in an image (I notice things when I'm using it that I would definitely miss if I used Photoshop alone).
Bottom line: I would never recommend that someone should buy this product INSTEAD of Photoshop. However, if you want your images to look their best, it can be used as an effective complimentary tool to Photoshop.
Many of the images on my website were improved (in my opinion) by LightZone - feel free to check them out (you'll have to check under the "Behind the Computer" tab on individual images to see if I used LightZone on a particular image).
Feel free to contact me if you have any other questions about the product...
Cheers...
Brad