Lightzone vs Lightroom?

[Alan G]

Following some of the good advice on here, as a beginner starting with the least costly option, I downloaded and briefly explored Gimp. Its quite impressive, not too removed from photoshop, so I will persevere with it for a bit.
Then, I looked for an alternative to Lightroom and discovered Lightzone, which is another free Open Source software program. There is a good range of Youtube video tutorials on this too and I have been able to make some fairly impressive edits to some of my photographs on the first day of use. Since I have never seen anyone use Lightroom and dont know what features it has, I wondered if Lightzone compares favourably with Lightroom or what it lacks?

Alan

[nimitzbenedicto]

Hi Alan,

As far as editing/post-processing is concerned, I'd say just about even. Both have the usual tools/adjustments such as: exposure, white balance, contrast, noise reduction, sharpening, etc.

Lightroom is far more advanced when it comes to "peripherals". like soft-proofing, different before-after views, lens-profiling, book making, connections to social-media, etc.

Btw, you can try out Lightroom 5.2 free for 30 days. This way you'll get to know the various capabilities of LR5.2.

But - Lightzone is free. And for me, I like exploring open source software like GIMP, Darktable, Photivo and similar photography related programs.

Hope this helps.

[Alan G]

Thanks for those comments. I am off to India soon, I will try Lightroom after I come back so I can fiddle with it over December. Can you tell me what soft proofing, and lens profiling are? I think it has before and after because it creates a copy of what you are working on all the time and you can toggle between them by pressing a button.
TIA
Alan

[davidedric]

Lens profiling: Every model of lens has built in imperfections, for example vignetting and distortions (which will vary with focal length in a zoom). Lightroom contains details of a very wide range of lenses which enables it to correct these imperfections when you select that option.

Soft proofing allows your monitor to depict as best it can how your image will look when printed using your particular printer/paper combination. In Lightroom, for example, it can show which colours in your image are "out of gamut", I.e. cannot be reproduced by your printer - giving you the opportunity to correct them if you wish. Of course, it is a bit more complicated than that, but those are the basics

BTW, perhaps selfishly, I don't really care whether a product is open source. I just want the one that is the best (for me) in allowing me to achieve what I want, and appears to offer a good future development path (for example, in incorporating new RAW formats)

[ajohnw]

It might pay to look at another option.. Photivo along side the GIMP. It's intended to be used that way as the GIMP provides the method of performing local retouching and using layer and mask modifications. On the other hand Photivo has had some of that added recently. Photivo does have lens correction. Lightzone doesn't but probably will some day.

An alternative is to use Ufraw to develop raw files as this has had lens correction by built in for some time. Since circa 2010. I prefer to use this application for raw development actually. Then export to what ever application I like or save as a tiff. It would be extremely unusual to find a camera not covered by this package. As all open source tends to use this package one way or another the same applies to all of them.

An application called Hugin will generate lens correction data for an actual lens which is probably a better option than using a general one for a particular mark of lensas they will vary from one to another. It will also stitch panoramas and do comprehensive perspective correction.

Lightroom isn't something I have used and probably never will. I have looked at some of the tutorials though. Retouching might concern me. For instance it does have dust removal presets and many many presets for doing specific things eg portrait touch up I am not sure how extensive these aspects are. I wouldn't be happy with a package that offered excellent portrait touch up and little else. That sort of approach is really aimed at producing a package that is easier to use than PS but no where near as capable and more suitable for mass markets. There are a lot of people about that feel that the GIMP is a viable alternative to PS but it has the same usage learning curve -possibly worse. I have used PS some years ago, 10+ and didn't like it one bit - GIMP neither. Learning curve problem really.

On this score a workflow of ufraw then either Photivo,Lightzone or the GIMP does make sense or even a mix of them but actually all will develop straight from raw even the GIMP.

One problem with the GIMP is plugins and brushes. There are such a lot of them. No installation I am aware of installs the lot as there are far too many. Best way to find them is to search for what you want to do - even using PS terminology with GIMP in front of it..

Yet another alternative Install virtualbox and then OpenSuse 12.3 as a guest operating system or dual boot but virtual box is a lot more convenient. Then use this site to add what ever you want with a one click install

http://software.opensuse.org/search?...penSUSE%3A12.3

And select show unsupported packages - that gives access to more recent releases of the various packages that are available. Unsupported just means not part of the original distribution release and is just how OpenSuse work.

The link will take you to the installation of one package I would recommend Fotoxx. Along with the usual retouching facilities and over all picture effects it also has panarama stitching, dof merging and hdr all without layers being apparent. There are a series of video's that show what it can do on youtube and probably the developers site. It also has perspective correction and tilt etc but other applications can be used as plugins so if more complex correction is needed Hugin can be used as a plugin. Photivo and the Gimp and many other can be used that way too. It does a straight raw conversion with no options based on performing all corrections with the facilities in the application. It can too. On the other hand for a more conventional approach Ufraw can be used 1st.

I should add that Photivo is worth installing even if it isn't used much as it comes with masses of camera colour profiles which are kept up to date. One the other hand another package Argyll colour management can be used to calibrate your own camera. Monitor and printer too. They provide a link to a source of reasonably priced colour cards for cameras, printers and scanners.

The other Linux option is Ubuntu. There people are more likely to find the very very latest version of an application but may have to use the console to install it. That isn't difficult really. The desktop can be varied on Linux. There is a choice. I use KDE but it's a bit heavy on the machine unless the graphical effects are turned off. Many use the other popular one called Gnome. All distributions have forums full of helpful people if some one gets stuck.

It's also easy to try Linux - all distributions offer bootable cd's so people can get the feel of them before actually installing. Many people stop using windows a year or so after trying it and run both up till then finding that eventually they aren't using windows at all. Be warned. Once some one is running Linux they may find that they do want to run a few windows applications. Many will run under something called Wine on linux. I believe some versions of Lightroom will. I might try a trial out of curiosity.

John
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[ajohnw]

A shot of Photivo's layout - just uploading as I couldn't post a picture late yesterday. May be of interest anyway. There are a number of adjustments under each tab. Mouse driven at sensible rates. Active tabs and filters etc are marked with a green dot making it easy to see where they are. The 1:1 at the bottom left is unusual. It's used to speed processing up by reducing image size according to this setting. Range 1:1 and up. I believe it runs all adjustments that have been made each time a change is made.



John
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[Alan G]

Some lovely shots there. I shall archive this thread so I can look at these suggestions when I have finished looking at Gimp and Lightzone. I want someting to compare them with.

My new little Panasonic Lumix LF1 has inbuilt panoramas and this was one of the first shots I took with it. Its of Fort Clonque and the dreaded Swinge on the north shore of Alderney. The Swinge is a daunting place on a yacht with swift tides and jagged rocky islands on either side. The picture was unadulterated taken by simply clicking the shutter. In the second, the Lightzone modified version, I am attempting to add a bit of drama into the scene simply by intensifying the colours, and sharpening the image a little so you can see the Fort more clearly. Any comments are welcome.


P1000041 by Alyrpal, on Flickr

and... The Lightzone one:


P1000041_lzn by Alyrpal, on Flickr

Alan

[Glenn NK]

I've never tried any of the alternatives to Lightroom mentioned in this thread as I adopted LR from the very first versions, and it's quite likely that one or more of the options are quite adequate.

That being said, one of the strengths/advantages of LR is that there are forums and sub-forums devoted to Lightroom - how many others have the wealth of information, experience, and expertise available that LR has?

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/fo...php?board=31.0

http://www.lightroomforums.net/forum.php

I've never seen a question asked that wasn't answered, or a problem that wasn't solved on these two links. I personally check in on both of them daily (after I go to CiC of course).

Glenn

[ajohnw]

There is also another one I forgot to mention. Very popular and has both rgb and lab controls. That's Rawtherapee. It also has a decent user manual that even shows the effect of the controls plus a user forum. Windows and Linux on that one. It tends to offer curves type adjustments on most things.

Hugin will stitch all sorts of panoramas together vertically and horizontally at the same time even ones taken with different lenses or even different cameras. it can do a number of other things as well - some tutorials.

http://hugin.sourceforge.net/tutorials/index.shtml

John
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[ajohnw]

I've never tried any of the alternatives to Lightroom mentioned in this thread as I adopted LR from the very first versions, and it's quite likely that one or more of the options are quite adequate.

That being said, one of the strengths/advantages of LR is that there are forums and sub-forums devoted to Lightroom - how many others have the wealth of information, experience, and expertise available that LR has?

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/fo...php?board=31.0

http://www.lightroomforums.net/forum.php

I've never seen a question asked that wasn't answered, or a problem that wasn't solved on these two links. I personally check in on both of them daily (after I go to CiC of course).

Glenn

Glen-

I think in some ways Victor summed it up. I too like exploring other packages. There is a catch though. Each of the packages I have mentioned take a different approach and each in it's own way prevents people from getting fully to grips with a package like the GIMP as they have no need. One of the other packages is likely to make the adjustment they want to make quicker / easier. As a for instance having just replaced my entire machine I wasn't going to re install Rawtherapee. Now I have looked at it's current version I probable will. Curves style adjustments in LAB look to be an attractive option. Might be useful at some point and its' free.

The worst offender on instant gratification is Fotoxx. As far as I'm aware it's the only open source package that assumes a photo might have power lines or dog pooh in it etc that needs to be removed. It will also cope with objects that have unwanted things moving in front of them. Take 2 shots and if suitably spaced in time it will remove them for you. All of the filters can be used as brushes. It's a sort of 90%+ package designed to do most of the things anyone is likely to want to do. Like the rest it keeps evolving. As it does so much the interface is a little different and might even be described as a bit crude as far as presentation is concerned. It also has very low cpu overheads. I mention it from time to time to encourage people to give it a try if they can. Linux only and I just hope the developer doesn't get fed up with maintaining it.

John
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[Glenn NK]

Alternative software can be very interesting and educational for those willing to spend the time exploring it, and it often has the advantage of not having a lesser or no monetary cost. I think that one is more apt to incur a cost with time spent learning all the ins and outs because less assistance is available (instead of using the time working on images).

It's interesting why some spend thousands on equipment, then don't invest a few hundred for software that's necessary to get the best from the images created by the expensive equipment. This being apart from the "I'm mad at Adobe about the cloud and am not going to use their products again" approach.

If one uses lesser known software for the challenge of exploring possibilities, then that's another situation, and I admire those intrepid souls for their endeavour.

Glenn

[Alan G]

I chose these free products because I just spent £310 on a new camera which I am hoping will become my main camera. For the last 9 years I have run Open Office an open source MS Office alternative. Its all to easy to spend a small fortune on a hobby, but I have several hobbies, I am retired, and I like travelling which is expensive, although my cycle tours are relatively inexpensive. If Gimp and Lightzone meet my modest requirements I shall be delighted to make a donation to keep these projects going. I am sure Adobe will survive quite well without me.
Having spent an afternoon getting to know Lightzone and Gimp my confidence is improving, I have improved some favourite pictures and rescued a couple of others.

Al

[ajohnw]

Alternative software can be very interesting and educational for those willing to spend the time exploring it, and it often has the advantage of not having a lesser or no monetary cost. I think that one is more apt to incur a cost with time spent learning all the ins and outs because less assistance is available (instead of using the time working on images).

It's interesting why some spend thousands on equipment, then don't invest a few hundred for software that's necessary to get the best from the images created by the expensive equipment. This being apart from the "I'm mad at Adobe about the cloud and am not going to use their products again" approach.

If one uses lesser known software for the challenge of exploring possibilities, then that's another situation, and I admire those intrepid souls for their endeavour.

Glenn

The reason I mentioned that Rawtherapee is free is that cost doesn't prevent some one from trying it. Even you. Actually all such packages are glad to receive donations so according to conscience needn't be free.

There is a counter argument to time spent learning. Most packages one way or the other offer the same basic facilities and some offer a lot more. Processing images will always involve learning to adjust the basics which ever package is used. The packages mentioned other than the GIMP, PS I assume still and Photivo are aimed at making the learning process easier and all offer the same basic adjustments so people get effective more quickly with them. Photivo does too but it's at the sharp end of development. If some one wants to know what a filter they have never heard of and probably wont find anywhere else does the only option is to try it. Curiously history shows these sort of things often find their way into commercial packages. Ether way on all of them even on the extensive packages once some one learns how to use say curves, contrast, brightness and sharpening etc they wont have much of a problem using them on all of the packages that are available.what ever they cost.

All of the packages have decent tutorials available that get weaker as the packages get more complex but taking the GIMP for instance and PS there are plenty of tutorials about on the web. They docs can be educational. Rawtherapee for instance gives a very good introduction into what LAB is all about. The Fotoxx video's give a good account at what is possible. It was never intended to be the bees knee's at everything but does give a pretty clear view of what can be done. Specialised packages are often the very best for that aspect. Even for noise reduction. Most add on packages often offer more along the instant gratification line and require very little learning.

Same with working from raw. All will offer very similar facilities - most likely exactly the same set. I understand Adobe provide there own camera curves - people are paying for convenience and avoiding having to do it themselves. Chances are from what I have seen it wont be a cure all either. Ufraw offer auto black and white point settings - usually hopeless but can give people a clue. Same with the other auto's that may be available in all packages.


The reason i run Linux has nothing to do with cost but that aspect is pleasant. I just got feed up with numerous factors relating to Windows so switched years ago. It has its' problems from time to time but on balance I feel they are a lot less. Believe it or not it also gives me access to some exceptional software. The open source for windows is also steadily increasing.

John
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[revi]

Alternative software can be very interesting and educational for those willing to spend the time exploring it, and it often has the advantage of not having a lesser or no monetary cost. I think that one is more apt to incur a cost with time spent learning all the ins and outs because less assistance is available (instead of using the time working on images).

It's interesting why some spend thousands on equipment, then don't invest a few hundred for software that's necessary to get the best from the images created by the expensive equipment. This being apart from the "I'm mad at Adobe about the cloud and am not going to use their products again" approach.

If one uses lesser known software for the challenge of exploring possibilities, then that's another situation, and I admire those intrepid souls for their endeavour.

Glenn

Well, us poor Linux users can't use the Adobe products (or not without extra work and some not 100% reliable hacks, and that is for the pre-cloud versions).

And, looking on Adobe's site, photoshop is 24.95€/month or ~300€/year. Compare that to an entry level camera and 1 or 2 3rd-party lenses, that should last several years... So that's not quite 'spending 1000s on equipment against 100s on software'. (and GIGO still is valid: it's always possible to rework a photo later with a better program, you cannot improve a technically bad image that way).

For what it's worth, if you go for a professional camera and lenses, then yes, it makes sense to use a professional tool for the post processing and spend the time and money learning to use it.

[Colin Southern]

And, looking on Adobe's site, photoshop is 24.95€/month or ~300€/year.

17.58 from what I can tell (single app, 1 year commitment)

http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/pho...ing-guide.html

[revi]

that's Pound Sterling though (I don't know the exchange rate)

And that's how they crashed a Mars lander (feet vs metres, though same principle )

[Manfred M]

Well, us poor Linux users can't use the Adobe products (or not without extra work and some not 100% reliable hacks, and that is for the pre-cloud versions).

And, looking on Adobe's site, photoshop is 24.95€/month or ~300€/year. Compare that to an entry level camera and 1 or 2 3rd-party lenses, that should last several years... So that's not quite 'spending 1000s on equipment against 100s on software'. (and GIGO still is valid: it's always possible to rework a photo later with a better program, you cannot improve a technically bad image that way).

For what it's worth, if you go for a professional camera and lenses, then yes, it makes sense to use a professional tool for the post processing and spend the time and money learning to use it.

On the other hand, the free and low cost options have a much smaller support network out there. I'm not only looking at the basic supplier support, but training materials and other bits and pieces to make my life easier. Even for the low end Adobe Products, there is plenty of support for Lightroom and Elements, but try to find this for even the "big players", like the Corel products or Gimp, there is a real lack of a support.

The other part of the equation is that Adobe has a vast connection to the photo community, so this aids their development cycle; they do know what the "pro" users are asking for. The other companies either put out a "me to" product a cycle or two after Adobe introduces it, or put out some great feature that may or may not be particularly useful.

As for the Linux users; I can understand some of the frustration there, but frankly, that OS is a niche player when it comes to things like photo editing, so I have limited sympathy. I am no Microsoft or Apple fanboy, but understand I need to use one or the other OS if I want to use Adobe. That is life...

As for the cost of the cloud service, in reality, it does cost me a bit more than it used to, but over the two year release cycle between versions, the costs are about the same and I pay a smaller fee monthly, rather than taking the large hit all at once.

[revi]

On the other hand, the free and low cost options have a much smaller support network out there. I'm not only looking at the basic supplier support, but training materials and other bits and pieces to make my life easier. Even for the low end Adobe Products, there is plenty of support for Lightroom and Elements, but try to find this for even the "big players", like the Corel products or Gimp, there is a real lack of a support.

The other part of the equation is that Adobe has a vast connection to the photo community, so this aids their development cycle; they do know what the "pro" users are asking for. The other companies either put out a "me to" product a cycle or two after Adobe introduces it, or put out some great feature that may or may not be particularly useful.

As for the Linux users; I can understand some of the frustration there, but frankly, that OS is a niche player when it comes to things like photo editing, so I have limited sympathy. I am no Microsoft or Apple fanboy, but understand I need to use one or the other OS if I want to use Adobe. That is life...

As for the cost of the cloud service, in reality, it does cost me a bit more than it used to, but over the two year release cycle between versions, the costs are about the same and I pay a smaller fee monthly, rather than taking the large hit all at once.

I didn't mean to say that we poor Linux users are abandoned, just please note that there is a group of users that cannot use photoshop, thus has to use something else.. I agree, there's a lot more information available for photoshop c.s. than for any other program.

On the other hand, photoshop has a price, whether through the cloud or through 'traditional' pricing. If both are the same, fine, but that's a discussion that we've had here already (iirc, ). Is that price justified for every amateur? Not all of them spend several thousands of € on equipment, so do they need the top editing program? Of course, using something else can be more time consuming, or less easy to use. But that's a choice each has to make for himself. I'm not convinced that there are things you can do in photoshop and not with another program.

One thing to note here: if you use other programs, you might need several programs to get all the functionalities you want, that photoshop offers in one package. E.g. I use one program for raw development and basic editing, another for pixel level editing (with layers and masks), and a third for panorama stitching and such. Less convenient, but it works for me.

[ajohnw]

Not so sure about some of that Manfred. GIMP usage seems to be growing. You would also find that it has had certain things for longer than others. Doing this and that searches doing it with GIMP does at times come up with that sort of thing. OS often leads the way. Googling "gimp tutorial" actual in quotes comes up with 432,000 hits, remove the quotes and there will be a lot more. There are even a lot on youtube. If some one knows the PS way of doing something googling the name plus GIMP generally comes up with solutions. There own doc's aren't too bad these days either. It's also a fact that there are a number of professionals that use it too, exclusively.

One of the unusual things about some photo processing via linux and where it can also be used on windows is that releases tend to be very slow coming in some cases. The GIMP and the underlying raw processing is an example of that. Remco and I await version 3 of the GIMP with some impatience. I was a little dismayed that something from the GMIC end is unlikely to appear until 3.2. GMIC is a sort of photo / image processing engine. Work in that area is on going. The time delays on releases of this kind are long because they involve starting again - something Adobe will not easily do. This is how OS gets ahead. As trivial example I have had tabbed browsing for donkies year. XP when it came out looked so much like one of the Linux desktops it was clearly a rip off. OS people often have problems with patents but only because they can't afford to fight them. Many are unbelievably weak really. Some times this helps eg PNG.

As to the rest. Photivo has things that may appear in PS one day. Rawtherapee has it's own forum and excellent docs. Lightzone is ex a one man band and wasn't supported or easily available for some time. I'm told that the tutorials that the dev did are good and still appropriate. It also has a forum. Fotoxx has a set of video's that cover everything it can do. There are a number of other packages too.

One other good thing about OS is that it's possible to influence they way things go and what applications do. Only problem there is that people sometimes have no idea how much work would be needed or if there want is even feasible.

I am also sure that Linux usage levels are understated. It really would be interesting to know the total number of installation discs that have been downloaded or bought. Interestingly it's reckoned to have 100% of the super computing market and there are a large number of Linux servers on the web despite Windows attempt to dominate that market. Windows actually contributed some code to the Linux Kernel recently - worrying. Some work on it is commercially supported. Linux also crops up in all sorts of things. Cheap option as the code is freely available. Techniques get copied too.

The people who use do so because it's free attitude always gets me. In some ways it's a life style type choice for many. It also takes a fair amount of dedication at times - on that score if anyone wants to try it remember OpenSuse 12.3 or one of Ubuntu's stable versions. There are many distributions and in some cases some people like having problems or a rather technical time even installing and updating it. Arch linux for instance falls into that category.

John
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[Manfred M]

Remco / John - I do hear where you are coming from and everyone does need to make a choice as to what "equipment" to use, whether it be hardware (cameras, lenses, etc) or software. As with everything, we look at what I refer to as the "value proposition"; is it worth my while to use a particular product, and frankly the cost can be a major driver. Just as we don't all shoot Leicas or Phase 1 cameras or use Zeiss lenses, it's not because we wouldn't love to be able to, it's because we can't justify the costs. i.e the value propostion does not work for us.

In my case, I use a a number of Adobe products frequently, so the "look and feel" being the same are a great advantage to me. I've invested a number of years of working (and growing) with the product line, so while I could switch to a competing product. For instance while I can edit video equally well in Apple's Final Cut Pro as I can in Adobe's Premiere Pro, I would suffer a quite bit of an efficiency loss if someone were to suggest I switch over to Avid Composer. Learning a different tool will take a major investment in time. I had a good hard go at Corel Painter XI a few years ago, and eventually gave up, not because it is a bad product, but I just did not have a compelling reason to learn the product.

As for tutorials on the internet; you may get a lot of hits, but frankly I've pretty well given up and tend to stick with the more professional offerings on sites like Lynda.com and Kelby Training. A lot of the amateur stuff seems to be well intentioned, but can be quite painful to watchand in some cases, it sends the user down the wrong path. I hate to say it, but you do get what you pay for...