Light Crafts LightZone

[wmmk]

Hey everybody!
I'm going digital, and now that I'm almost positive that I'm getting a Pentax K100D, I need to think about software. Does anyone on MR use LightZone. From what I gather, this is an Aperture alternative. Am I right? If it is, it's half the price and has lower system requirements. Seems nice to me! I'm a truly serious photographer, but I don't have much cash. Will LightZone, PSE, and the Pentax software be enough to produce high quality prints and web material? I also want a good level of flexibility.
Thanks in advance for helping out!

 

[Aperture]

Hey Will. The EDU discount on Aperture is $150, is that out of the price range? I really think that is a great app, I might be getting it later this year.

Edit: I see the "Light Zone" is only $89. Why not buy a used copy here or on eBay? (Aperture) They easily go for as much as $80.

Edit 2: + with Aperture 1.5, there are MUCH lower requirements.

 

[wmmk]

Hey Will. The EDU discount on Aperture is $150, is that out of the price range? I really think that is a great app, I might be getting it later this year.

this is true, kevin, although as we're not in college, we're not eligible for apple EDU discounts. anyway, if i happen to be mistaken, then i'd have to go for aperture, as lightzone is $150.

 

[Aperture]

Will, do you have any brothers/sisters/cousins/etc that are in college and would buy the software and *give* it to you? My brother is currently in college, and at his campus computer store they sell Aperture for $100.

Kevin

 

[FocusAndEarnIt]

I agree with Kevin; with the new Aperture, and it's improvements, and it's price range you should use that - all the way.

Ask someone you know as a teacher/student who is eligible for the discount; that's what I did for my iMac.

 

[wmmk]

Will, do you have any brothers/sisters/cousins/etc that are in college and would buy the software and *give* it to you? My brother is currently in college, and at his campus computer store they sell Aperture for $100.

Kevin

unfortunately, i have no family members in college. the main point of this thread was to find out people's opinions on LightZone, from people who have actually used it. thanks

 

[wmmk]

can anyone help or at least reccomend a mac photo software specific forum where I could ask this question? thanks

 

[ChrisA]

Have you seen the other thread in this forum called "Which Photoshop?" It address this same question. Basically everyone says "I have X. I like X." It's the same kind of reply you'd get if you asked "what camera should I buy?"

To get a better answer you need to give more information about your planned uses.

The software you need depends on wht you want to do to the images. Are you making gross level adjustments to the entire image for example adjusting the color balance, exposure and mild sharpening and croppping? If that's it then iPhoto will do fine. Even if you shoot RAW format iPhoto uses the same RAW converter as Aperture, the one built into OSX.

Aperture, now that 1.5 is out seems to be a drop in replacement for iPhoto but for some one who shoots a LOT more images

Next are any of several "image editors" that allow you to go inside the image and make selectiv changes to parts of the image, like darkening a backgrond object or taking out a utility wire or applying some complex effects or combining multiple images into one. Photoshop is a common image editor but Elements is another as is Gimp.

You do not need any software to make prints if you like the image made in the camera. if minor corrections are needed then iPhoto or it's big brother Aperture can do some things but their real purpose is organizing and catalogging the images. An image editor is required if you want to make major changes.

 

[Abstract]

Hey everybody!
I'm going digital, and now that I'm almost positive that I'm getting a Pentax K100D, I need to think about software. Does anyone on MR use LightZone. From what I gather, this is an Aperture alternative. Am I right? If it is, it's half the price and has lower system requirements. Seems nice to me! I'm a truly serious photographer, but I don't have much cash. Will LightZone, PSE, and the Pentax software be enough to produce high quality prints and web material? I also want a good level of flexibility.
Thanks in advance for helping out!

Don't know about LightZone, but if you want an alternative to Aperture, there's iView Media Pro, which has been around for quite awhile, and Adobe Lightroom, although that's still beta 4 and not released.

You can even try out iView Media Pro on a 21 day trial, and use Lightroom Beta 4 until February 2007. When Beta 5 comes out, that might get extended beyond Feb 2007.

 

[wmmk]

dang! iView with education discount (which includes K-12 students) is only $99! thats a steal. if i like the demo, i may have to go for that! any even cheaper products? also, is bridge any good?

 

[ChrisA]

dang! iView with education discount (which includes K-12 students) is only $99! thats a steal. if i like the demo, i may have to go for that! any even cheaper products? also, is bridge any good?

Cheaper products? Yes of course. Depends what you need. iPhoto is part of iLife which sells for less than $100 but is bundled for free with every new Mac and Gimp is free. But those two products are very different so which to use depends on what exactly you want to do. Is it catalog and file the images or manipulate the mages. There is lots of free software available,to much to list. Whaich is best depends on what you want to do.

 

[ChrisA]

...Does anyone on MR use LightZone. From what I gather, this is an Aperture alternative. Am I right? If it is, it's half the price and has lower system requirements

From reading their web site one of the differences between LightZone and Aperture/iPhoto is that LightZone requires you to place a photo in "a folder". the keyword being "a" as in "just one". This would be a huge limitation for me. The other programs allow a imge to be simultainously in ant number of folders. So I can have some folders sorted by data some by location and others by subject and others by type of photo (city scape, portraints, underwater and so on.) I will also make new folder for each slide show or book project. And while the photo is in multiple folders there is only one physical copy of the image on the disk. I would not use or recommend a photo file system that did not have this feature. If you are worried about price and system requrements why not use iPhoto?

 

[Abstract]

dang! iView with education discount (which includes K-12 students) is only $99! thats a steal. if i like the demo, i may have to go for that! any even cheaper products? also, is bridge any good?

Some pros still use Bridge. Some pros use iView as well and don't see the need to switch to Lightroom or Aperture just because of the huge marketing push, and are perfectly efficient using their current setup. It's your choice, really. At least programs like iView are very fast on older machines. Speed will always be a HUGE benefit of using iView.

 

[balofagus]

I just wanted to say something about the Pentax Software (PENTAX Photo Lab and Browser) as you said you'd be using them -- I find them grossly hard to use. They look like they have tonnes of features (how can all those windows that open up be totally useless?) but none of it makes sense to me. Mind, I've only just gotten into shooting RAW so I never had to worry about most of the stuff with JPEG. I downloaded Lightroom Beta 4 and I like it, all I do is adjust WB, fiddle with tones, export to 100% JPEG and finish it all off in Photoshop.

Oh, and it's all free for now! I hope its not too expensive upon release because I wan't to update from PS7 on next release and won't be able to afford both if it's expensive.

 

[wmmk]

thanks for all the advice. i already have iPhoto, and it just doesn't do all i'd like it to. i've tried aperture, and i like i t a lot better. as to GIMP, thatis more for image manipulation than catalogging, retouching, and adjusting. when using the LightZone trial, i found the interface to be rather klunky. how's bibble? i've heard a lot of very good things about it from some very highly acclaimed pro photographers who are firends of my parents.

 

[compuwar]

Hey everybody!
I'm going digital, and now that I'm almost positive that I'm getting a Pentax K100D, I need to think about software. Does anyone on MR use LightZone. From what I gather, this is an Aperture alternative. Am I right? If it is, it's half the price and has lower system requirements. Seems nice to me! I'm a truly serious photographer, but I don't have much cash. Will LightZone, PSE, and the Pentax software be enough to produce high quality prints and web material? I also want a good level of flexibility.
Thanks in advance for helping out!

I found LZ to be close, but not-quite-there in terms of the ultimate image editing application. The "move things around visually in the zone system" stuff is amazingly intuitive and good, the "select a small area to touch it up" stuff was unusually frustrating.

If it were 5% better interface-wise, it'd be a solid winner in my book- though 15% faster wouldn't hurt either