[rrobinson54]

I currently use Photoshop CS2 & iView Media Pro for my workflow. I am thinking I might get better & more consistent results with Lightroom or Lightzone. Which is better? I normally shoot my K10D and K100D IR converted cameras in RAW and am looking for the best software to convert and modify my RAW images.

Thanks!

[tybeck]

"Better" is a matter of perspective and what your needs are. I've played around with both Lightroom and Lightzone and found they were different beasts. Lightroom is like iView Media combined with an excellent RAW converter. Lightzone is closer to Photoshop in it abilities and does tricks that Lightroom can't touch, local editing. The ZoneMapper function combined with masks is very powerful. I haven't looked at it yet, but I've read the Lightroom 2.0 beta has a new feature where changes can be made to one part of the image.

The ZoneMapper feature in Lightzone alone would have sold me on the program, but it was slow and crashed a lot on my Powerbook. If I get a more up-to-date machine it might run better. As for Lightroom I found it to be excellent, but again on my machine I had some performance issues, I also didn't want to fork over that much cash. In the end I choose RAW Developer for it's output quality and combination of features.

Since both programs have trial versions I'd take them for a test run and see what you think. Think about what kind of editing you need to do. LightCrafts had some screencasts highlighting LightZone functions and the give you some test images with the demo. The new Lightroom beta is good for 30 days for non-Lightroom 1.x licensees. I'll be trying them out again myself at some point.

Hope that helps.

[Venturi]

I went with LightZone for a few reasons after comparing them side-by-side. YMMV but this is how it shook out for me:

1. Cost. LightZone $149 thru 5/31, $199 regular; Lightroom $299
2. Ease of use. LightZone I was up and running within a couple minutes getting stuff done. Lightroom was a chore from the start and not very intuitive (for me).
3. Speed. Lightroom wants to "import" everything into it's database and was slooow to load or do anything. LightZone lets you work on whatever you want wherever it is with no additional overhead and operations are fairly quick.
4. Reliability. Lightroom crashed on me several times on my dual-core 4GB system. LightZone has only taken a dump on me once and that was during the beta and was my fault really - I moved some stuff around in another app while I had LZ open on the same directory.
5. Portability. Lightroom only runs on native Winbloze and will not run under Wine. LightZone has both Win and Linux native versions.

[ryno]

I chose light zone because it's quick and easy, It makes me think more like like I do in the darkroom. It's ability to edit selections was also a plus. The downsides are: 1. Others say lightroom has better photo organization, I don't shoot huge numbers so that's not very important. 2. Lack of how to and help, there are many books on lightroom, the only thing for lightzone is the help within the program, and the company forum.
Ryan

[Mikhail]

Well I chose LR mainly due to it being non destructive & remembering your settings for each image (no matter the format). LZ has to save a jpeg\tiff every time you edit an image and that just doesn't work with my work flow. Also the cataloguing features, slide shows, printing features in LR beat LZ any day. Also I do like the zone map system of LZ and the "layers".

Thanks

[kpfeifle]

I bought both!

[MrApollinax]

I am liking what I've seen so far from Lightzone. The zoning concept is more intuitive to me than straight curve manipulation. The tools are pretty easy to understand and apply to regions of the photograph.

[rrobinson54]

Or, would it make more sense to update from CS2 to CS3, and get LR or LZ later?

[momtographer]

it really depends on what sort of work your planning to do, lighrooms great, I absolutely love it and have spent a lot less time in cs3, because lightroom can do a lot of editing faster and easier,I've never tried lightzone.

[germar]

I vote for Lightzone.

Very powerful, but relatively simple to master and understand.

It's not "paste your sister's head on the family dog" manipulation program, but something that really allows you to take good photos and really make them better....without having the complexity associated with Adobe products.

Try the trial!


germar

[Steve-O]

Pentaxists for LightZone! Yay!

[colonialgirl]

I'm another LightZone fan! I have PSE6 as well as Painter - each of them have their strengths. LZ is so intuitive - very, very easy to get into.
Yes, it [I]is[I] a smaller company so there might be a hickup or two for some users, no literature published by parent companies, etc. but they do seem to bring out improvements quite frequently and the end product is amazingly deceptive!
Aren't all good ideas the same - simple interface, logical approach to a single niche area?
Shireen

[cyco]

Well I chose LR mainly due to it being non destructive & remembering your settings for each image (no matter the format). LZ has to save a jpeg\tiff every time you edit an image and that just doesn't work with my work flow. Also the cataloguing features, slide shows, printing features in LR beat LZ any day. Also I do like the zone map system of LZ and the "layers".

Thanks

Actually this is not true. LZ does none destructive editing. However instead of collecting the processing info in a database like I believe LR does, it's saves the info in a small jpg file which is associated with the original RAW or JPG file. This does have several advantages over using a database. You have all your data in one place, for example I have all my images on a portable HDD and can work on it at home or in my office, without having to worry about the editing info. It's also easy to create several different version from one image. I do agree that using the database can be less intrusive (although I think you can set LZ that it does not display the jpgs), from what I've heard LZ printing seems to give some people problems. I have not tried it.

Cheers
Jochen