Finally a decent RAW app for Linux !!!!!

harjtt

Riley over at the Oly forum on Steve's Digicam, mentioned Lightzone as a RAw editor for linux while I decide on what to do with my Windows Shuttle XPC and I hadn't realised it was available as a linux application. I had to google for the linux version of Lightzone and found that the linux version is being developed by a few people outside of Lightzone's offical developers and its free! First thoughts on the app - a really different interface and way to work esp if you've been used to any sort of Adobe app. Its the first polished image/RAW editor that I've come across on Linux and thast sayign a lot. I'm still trying to get my head around it but its definetly better than Bibble Pro - its not crashed or core dumped on me at all and even though they recommend a 2GHz + 1GB Ram as the base spec its been ok even on my Dual P3 450 + 750MB Ram! I'm more than likely upgrade this amchine as well possible pick up a pair of PIII 700's - need to decide on whether to get another shuttle XPC.

You can down load it from here:

http://sonic.net/~rat/lightcrafts/

Here's three shots converted from RAW to jpeg taken yesterday during lunch. the church shot still looks as if its got a cast which I'll have to try and work out how to remove in Lightzone. There's no noise reduction applied to any of the shots, and i couldnt notice any difference when using the USM tool. All taken with Oly e1 + 14-54ZD

1.Rover MG - I under exposed this shot by quiet a bit by accident.



2. A Brick wall



3. Finally the Church




Cheers

HarjTT

:thumb

quark

Looks useful - downloading the tar now. Thanks for sharing.

Shay Stephens

Thank you for posting that. I will download it too and give it a whirl.

Shay Stephens

I gave it a quick run-through and I am very impressed. This might just replace bibble pro for me if I can get everything I need done with it. Thank you again for posting it.

harjtt

Shay Stephens wrote:

I gave it a quick run-through and I am very impressed. This might just replace bibble pro for me if I can get everything I need done with it. Thank you again for posting it.

Hi Shay

Just glad to help and pass on the infor. I'd seen a few of the guys over at the Leica forum start to use lightzone last year and produce some really nice work but they did warn it worked in a completely different way to anything they'd used before. My first impressions - this is the first really pro quality app on linux I've come across for working on RAW files and in my opinion is a lot better than Bibble Pro. Its got a bit of a learning curve, but I do really like the way you work on a file - really nice.

Cheers

HarjTT

rutt

See this thread. I tried this out this summer and even met the management and developers. At the time, I even formed the thought that this would be a great photo editing app for Shay.

It's oriented toward people who think about post the way Ansel Adams wrote about it. This is no bad thing; Adams was probably the clearest thinker on the topic ever. I challenged these guys with a few of my own images and corrections and they were able to get competitive images in each case using their own methodology. See this post.

Shay Stephens

rutt wrote:

At the time, I even formed the thought that this would be a great photo editing app for Shay.

I have seen this app floating around, but never tried it. Don't know why, it just never entered my consciousness. Maybe because at first look it doesn't look complete enough (features). I don't know.

(edit)Well, now that I think about it, up Until last month I was still dual booting with Windows, so I had no big desire to look too hard at alternate editors. It wasn't until I switched full time to linux that I have been more keen on my options. And still, it took a PM from ziggy to point me to this thread before I tried it.

What I have found so far is that the editing does seem very intuitive. I like the tool stack. I love the ability to do global and local editing (wow). I have some more work to do in figuring out how to make all the edits I need, but so far I am very impressed. It seems faster than bibble pro, and that is my biggest beef with bibble, just so slow.

quark

This is a very nice tool. Does anyone have the scoop on why it is currently free for linux users only? I hate to get too attached if they might take it away and start charging me later ...

Shay Stephens

quark wrote:

This is a very nice tool. Does anyone have the scoop on why it is currently free for linux users only? I hate to get too attached if they might take it away and start charging me later ...

What's that saying...don't look a gift horse in the mouth ;-)

It is free, use it and enjoy it as is. They can't take it away. They can make future version charged for. And if the program is worth it to you, then you buy it.

I paid for Photoshop 7, Photoshop CS, and Photoshop CS2 and I am not using CS or CS2. I paid for bibble, but I am looking to replace it (maybe). So it isn't what you paid for it, it's how it works for you. Unless the price is just astronomical, price usually is one of the least factors to worry about.